A political year in review

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Speaker 2 Well, it's been a huge year in politics. A federal election, a social media ban, navigating a relationship with a volatile Donald Trump, and even a wedding for the Prime Minister.

Speaker 2 I'm Patricia Carvellis, and on this special episode of the Party Room, we are going to take you to our recent live show in Canberra, recorded in December, where we were joined on stage by my regular Monday co-host Jacob Greber.

Speaker 2 And just a really important note to acknowledge this was recorded before the devastating events in Bondi that targeted Jewish Australians on December the 14th.

Speaker 2 Today the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

Speaker 1 Government is always formed in a sensible centre, but our Liberal Party reflects a range of views.

Speaker 7 Politics is the brutal game of arithmetic, but no one's going to vote for you who don't stand for something.

Speaker 2 We've always been about the planet but we've got to make sure that people have the

Speaker 4 arithmetic.

Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to the party room and the politics now live show at the Canberra Theatre. I'm Patricia Carvellis.

Speaker 1 And I'm Frank Kelly and I want to start tonight by acknowledging the owners, the traditional owners of the land on which we gather, the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people, always was, always will be and I'm so thrilled to be back in Canberra.

Speaker 1 I you know left this town more than 20 years ago but it still feels like home to me especially when I'm talking politics with Piquet so it's so great to be here and Piquet love is in the air in fact is that wedding bells I hear I think it is

Speaker 2 I think it is

Speaker 2 Bran and I are not getting married tonight to each other she's never proposed to me she's never actually taken any interest in me at all

Speaker 1 I was going to get down on my knee but I've just had a knee operation so...

Speaker 2 It's very true but we actually missed our invites to the Royal Australian wedding and

Speaker 4 I was feeling a little aggrieved by it. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Like I thought why wouldn't you want me to be there?

Speaker 4 I have good outfits, jokes, I'm very good at small talk.

Speaker 1 I have known that guy since he was in short pants and I didn't get, it's true actually, and I didn't get an invite to the wedding but I think that was wise PK.

Speaker 1 Though I have to confess that when I was watching the footage of the wedding on the newsers that night,

Speaker 1 I had a serious case of FOMO. I kept fast-forwarding and rewinding to see, were there any other journalists there? I thought I...

Speaker 1 It's true. I thought I saw Spearsy and I'm going, is that Spearsy?

Speaker 4 You actually did do that.

Speaker 2 I did do that. You did do that.
Yeah, and that says something about Frank Kelly's enormous competitive spirit, which she brings with her everywhere. Look, the wedding was quite the event.

Speaker 2 I love a wedding. It was kind of a fairy tale thingy.

Speaker 4 Well, it was. I mean,

Speaker 1 they looked incredibly happy. They looked incredibly beautiful.
There was a lot of talk about the dress, as there always is. But though, in this case, I think it's good.

Speaker 1 She is the, do we call them First Lady? Yes, whatever we call her.

Speaker 1 She was wearing a fabulous Australian designer called Romance Was Born. So it's always.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, France talking faster.

Speaker 4 I know, right? Well, hello.

Speaker 4 But Piquet.

Speaker 2 That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 But Piquet, the dress I couldn't take my eyes off was Toto's, the PM's. True love.

Speaker 2 Will you look at that? It's quite something. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I have wrestled with this. Like, would I humiliate my dog

Speaker 2 like this? Of course you would. Yeah, well, my children humiliate my dog like this all the time.
We're always buying outfits.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if you know this, but outfits for dogs are actually quite expensive. Yeah, they are.

Speaker 1 Do you really buy Bindi outfits?

Speaker 2 Have you met Stella Carvelis? Yes, I buy Bindy outfits. Anyway, it's been a big year in politics and you'd have to say punctuated by a thumping wind for the Albanese government.

Speaker 1 It's been a big year in politics, but PK, it's been a year I think that has been all about that election because... Oh, we're still talking about it, aren't we? Yeah, we're still talking about it.

Speaker 1 We're still sort of living through the throes of it.

Speaker 1 The Knight of the Long Knives in the Liberal Party just goes on and on and on and on. I think it's going to go all summer.

Speaker 1 Labor's landslide, I have to confess I did not see that coming, that landslide. Oh, no.
I did not see that coming.

Speaker 2 Not those numbers.

Speaker 2 I saw a majority. Did you?

Speaker 1 Not at the beginning, you didn't. And certainly not in January.

Speaker 2 Look, we want to show off a little bit and share how many elections we've covered because, you know, you came to watch us. So

Speaker 2 that's on you.

Speaker 2 Fran, how many elections have you covered?

Speaker 4 11. 11.
11.

Speaker 1 I couldn't believe it when I counted them up. You had to get Wikipedia out to remind me of all the dates.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I asked the AI to,

Speaker 2 I was like, AI, tell me. And it actually got it wrong.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I did. Lara picked it up.
So mine's nine. Nine.

Speaker 4 Which makes 20 far behind you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but that makes 20.

Speaker 2 Cumulatively. Yeah, cumulatively.
But if we count them together, which is not what we should do.

Speaker 4 And together on the party room?

Speaker 4 Covered four together.

Speaker 1 We've covered four together. For a podcast, that is a lot.
Like, that is even before podcasts were like a thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Fran and I often reminisce how, actually, I need to check. Who goes like way back with us?

Speaker 1 Who's an original party roommate? Oh,

Speaker 4 I love you.

Speaker 2 But actually, there's a lot of hands not up, which I like because it means there's new new recruits. And I like that.
I like new fresh blood.

Speaker 2 No, if you're old, I don't want to be rude to you, but I do like fresh blood.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so that's a lot of elections. But back then, when we started the podcast, two women didn't really do that stuff yet.

Speaker 1 No. Now they're all doing it.

Speaker 4 They're all talking.

Speaker 2 And you know what? Besties. They're all hanging out.

Speaker 1 Piquet and I didn't even know each other when we started this.

Speaker 2 I'd tell them what I did to wear you down. So Fran's very

Speaker 1 because you're always wearing me down.

Speaker 2 Fran's very guarded. And I don't know if you've picked it up from listening, but I'm not.
And like, I've got no social protocols. So I was like, she's a tough nut to crack.
I'm going to wear her down.

Speaker 2 And I called her so often that eventually she was like, oh, for God's sake, I suppose we are BFFs.

Speaker 1 She said, we're going to be BFFs by the end of this. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And look at us now.

Speaker 1 Look at us now.

Speaker 4 Look at us now. Me helping you with your knee.

Speaker 2 I mean, the things we've gone through. You would have thunk it.
Now, so yes, it's been a big year.

Speaker 2 It obviously started with with the Albanese government's thumping win, which you say we didn't predict, but some people knew it was coming.

Speaker 1 Well, I reckon only Albo knew it was coming.

Speaker 2 Oh, well, well, he did not want his own. They gave him the research.

Speaker 1 Well, no, because if you, I talked to a lot of Labor people, as did you in that time. They were nervous, man.
They were nervous. They were always nervous.
Yeah, but...

Speaker 2 No. Yeah, they were pretty nervous.

Speaker 1 They were pretty nervous. I mean, he was, you know, he'd really lost his mojo.
At the start of the year, his polling was down.

Speaker 1 And then the election got got called but he is a believer.

Speaker 1 He is a self-believer that got knocked out of him after the voice I think and you know he had the wobbles and he really lost his sort of sense of self but over summer he worked on it.

Speaker 1 He sat around, he sat around with his closest cabinets, members, let's call them the kitchen cabinet, and he got up there. He got himself up there.

Speaker 2 He did and he did work every day and like you know it was a thing. It didn't work straight away.
The key moment for me I think was the interest rate cut.

Speaker 2 I don't think you can discount how that changed the sort of vibe of the joint, that things were on the way up rather than on the way down.

Speaker 1 I think a key moment was Donald Trump, because we saw it in Canada halfway through our campaign, and that made us go, ah, there is a Trump thing going on here.

Speaker 2 And they didn't lean into it at all.

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 1 they didn't lean into it at all. But you know who didn't lean into it? The coalition lent the wrong way.

Speaker 1 They lent the wrong way. Peter Dutton had lent into Trump and then all of a sudden that vibe completely changed.
Australians were pretty clear.

Speaker 1 They didn't want that kind of thing, that kind of politic in Australia. They didn't want our Prime Minister grovelling to Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 And Peter Dutton started to try to backpedal and it just looked all wrong.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he was kind of a bit Trumpish and then not very Trumpish on other things. Exactly.
Because he did some smart things before the election. You might recall, for instance, he asked

Speaker 2 his MPs not to talk about abortion.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that went well.

Speaker 2 And now they're talking about abortion again.

Speaker 4 Look,

Speaker 2 clearly Albanese is a bit good at politics. It's fair to say that, yeah? He's a bit good at politics.

Speaker 2 And two things happened in the election campaign that for me are kind of seismic that I would like to reflect on, my friends, because you came tonight.

Speaker 2 One being

Speaker 2 Peter Dutton losing his seat, the seat of Dixon, that Labor had tried to knock him off for quite a lot of time. Yeah, a couple of those.
And he even held on when Labor won last time.

Speaker 2 Like, that was quite...

Speaker 1 Yeah, he did, and he was very proud of that fact. And he was...
Just bulletproof because of that and that was part of the issue I think for him in his party room.

Speaker 1 He went in as almost a conquering hero in a sense, even though they'd lost the election. And so he had a lot of authority, a lot of

Speaker 1 command of his party room and that...

Speaker 1 with the benefit of hindsight, we can see turned out to be a bit of a poison chalice for him.

Speaker 2 I think it was absolutely a poison chalice.

Speaker 1 But I don't think he realised at the start of the campaign that he was in trouble in the seat of Dixon.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know why he didn't, though, because they'd vested so much money in it. Like I just, you know,

Speaker 2 you can't find a billionaire that didn't put money in that seat. Like they were just pouring money in that seat.
He was in a lot of trouble in that seat.

Speaker 2 But for me, the story that I thought was the most interesting in the campaign, and maybe it sort of says something about where I live and what I notice, but was actually the loss of Adam Bant

Speaker 2 and what... that means for the left.
I know that's a little counterintuitive, but

Speaker 2 here was like

Speaker 2 the Greens leader in a seat that he was so entrenched in like in the seat of Melbourne we really I'm in the seat of Melbourne I live there I just did not think he was going to get unseated and he did so that

Speaker 2 he was in a safe Labour seat for so long and it had changed everyone just thought it had changed permanently and I think Adam Band thought that and what it showed is that anyone can be defeated that every seat is gettable because in fact Lindsay Tanner who was the previous member because I'm so old I remember that

Speaker 2 for Labor for the seat of Melbourne after Lindsay Tanner went and then they lost that seat, I think Labor had given up. But they didn't spend a lot of money in that campaign.

Speaker 2 They didn't spend a lot of time. I mean, I don't want to be rude.
She's a lovely woman, but people barely know who the Labor MP is.

Speaker 2 So it shows that there was something going on across the country which worked to Albanese's advantage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think there's two threads to that. I think part of it was the Greens, you know, they had the Greenslide.
at the election before in 2022.

Speaker 1 They won, I think it was five seats, the most seats they've ever had in the lower house. And, you know, they were riding high.
Adam Bant was talking about the green slide for months.

Speaker 1 And fair enough, they had really entrenched, they thought. But then they got,

Speaker 1 well, then they had to manage their party room.

Speaker 1 And they had, they're a party of the left, but they had some more radical MPs in that party room and some more traditional Green MPs in that party room, sort of environmentalists, that's their key thing.

Speaker 1 And the radicals, in a sense, were triumphant.

Speaker 1 And so there was a few moments where the Greens, I think for many Australians and many Greens voters and long-term Greens voters, thought they just were going too far, they were being too obstructionist, they were talking about things that were not really what the Greens should be talking about.

Speaker 1 They weren't focusing on the environment, they were focusing on the CFMEU. That was a bad moment.

Speaker 1 Spent a lot of time on Gaza, which is, you know, perhaps fair enough, but they went very hard on the government.

Speaker 2 It wasn't a whole lot of nuance.

Speaker 1 No, not a whole lot of nuance. And on a range of issues.
And then they played hardball on things like housing and that went down. On the EPPC, and that went down.

Speaker 1 Mind you, you might blame the Prime Minister for that.

Speaker 1 So I think they paid a price for

Speaker 1 spreading their wings.

Speaker 2 That's the wings. Spreading their wings.

Speaker 1 And taking these radical positions. They paid a price for that.
But also, I think what we saw in the election landslide is that the country didn't want division. They were looking at America.

Speaker 1 They clearly rejected that and what the Trump America looked like. They wanted a government that was going to unify.

Speaker 1 They wanted to get rid of all the fighting and the divisions and so they voted overwhelmingly to put one side in there to get things done. They didn't want all these distractions and blockages.

Speaker 1 They wanted a government to manage the country.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 we're going to try and work out if that's happening. My observation is that, like, I've seen a lot of political campaigns as I declared, which kind of really time-stamps me in a disturbing way.

Speaker 2 But it did it anyway.

Speaker 4 It times timestamps me more than.

Speaker 2 It does, but you just move on from there.

Speaker 2 You're cool with your knees.

Speaker 2 You're doing well. I just think that I've never seen a worse political campaign than the one run by the Liberal Party at this campaign.
And I have seen a rival, which is Mark Latham's 2004 campaign.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was out of the country for that one, so I've got nothing to measure it by, but it was a shocker. I'll tell you one of the moments.

Speaker 4 I'm sure every day.

Speaker 2 One of the moments where I thought, these people are really weird, was when at the Mark Latham campaign, I went to this event with him and they unveiled the schools that would lose funding.

Speaker 2 Now it was like a class war thing. They're like private schools, right? And it was like, yeah, we're going to take money off them.

Speaker 2 But in the unveiling of the list, given so many aspirational people send themselves to these schools, it's kind of like shooting yourself.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and also done stuff like that, almost like taxpayer-funded nuclear plants.

Speaker 1 Like that, like almost like that. I mean, every day, I don't think Peter Ed Dutton won one day of the campaign.

Speaker 4 I can't think of one day.

Speaker 1 I don't think he he won one day. And those sort of who are embedded in politics for decades have all come out one by one with their analysis pieces saying it's the worst campaign they've ever seen.

Speaker 1 And then there was a survey of all of us that's conducted after every election campaign.

Speaker 1 Well, literally not all of us, but you know, a lot of people, who voted Peter Dutton the worst opposition leader in the 38 years this survey has been going on. So you know, it really was a shocker.

Speaker 1 And they kept changing tact to try and pull it out of the dumpster fire, but they couldn't do it.

Speaker 2 Now, we have a very special guest for you tonight. You know him because we made him famous on Politics Now

Speaker 2 by making him my co-host on a Monday, and via association with our podcast, he landed his job as 7:30 political editor.

Speaker 1 PK, that is too much. He's also

Speaker 2 should we welcome Jacob Green? Let's do it.

Speaker 4 Where is he? Where is he?

Speaker 4 There is Jacob Greaver.

Speaker 4 We We haven't got all night. High five.

Speaker 5 High five. High five.

Speaker 4 Well done. Here we go.

Speaker 2 Jacob, you're on that chair.

Speaker 2 Well, Jacob, everyone, warm welcome for Jacob. You just gave one, but.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow. You wouldn't tell me how many people show up at these things.

Speaker 2 I know. You're usually...

Speaker 4 Well, you associate with us, Mr. Friends.

Speaker 4 No. No, I avoid them.

Speaker 3 I avoid them.

Speaker 4 I stay in little rooms and studios.

Speaker 2 You're missing 7.30 tonight. Scarving off, are you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, don't tell the boss.

Speaker 4 No, actually.

Speaker 2 He's in estimates anyway, so they're having a good time.

Speaker 1 But the boss did say to me, if something big happens, he's got a bounce. So let's just hope we've got, we're almost through.

Speaker 4 We're almost through. I think we're okay.

Speaker 2 Now, Jacob.

Speaker 4 Ian's on a honeypot.

Speaker 2 Every week, we start the week. We set up the week together.

Speaker 2 It's like sort of political therapy on a Monday as we prepare for our week ahead.

Speaker 4 It's a bit like that. I'm bad it is for you.
It's good.

Speaker 2 There's been a bit on this year, hasn't there?

Speaker 3 yeah yeah there has there has and i've been listening to you backstage and you kind of forget all the stuff that actually went down in the in the sort of rough and tumble of daily coverage but it's been a kind of bonkers year bonkers bonkers year yeah what's the most bonkers i think watching the liberal party fly into the side of a mountain

Speaker 3 without realizing they were doing it and and that's a metaphor but it's actually kind of what happened they really didn't see what was coming no they didn't see what was coming and i think we're going to talk about that a bit more later because it's a perfect example of it.

Speaker 1 But, you know, it's a real, I mean, it showed several things, but it showed the real flaws or weaknesses in their sort of campaign setup, or has been written many times since and said by both of you, I think.

Speaker 2 As you've said on your podcast, exactly.

Speaker 4 This map of the dysfunction within

Speaker 1 the party, and it never works. You know, it went bad for Paul Keating when it happened in his campaign in 1996, too, when there's dysfunction between the leader's office and the campaign headquarters.

Speaker 1 If they don't trust each other, if they're not working together, it's good night nurse.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. And they were getting terrible polling.
Like we've had stories now that have come out about

Speaker 3 the way the polling was done and how it used the outcome of the voice

Speaker 3 to weight the way people were voting. So people who voted no in the voice were put in the Liberal Party's camp or the coalition's camp.
And it turned out that that isn't what happened.

Speaker 2 It turns out voting about a small minority group at a referendum where you don't know much about it because it's complicated, has nothing to do with your material interests in a general election campaign.

Speaker 3 I feel like there's an edge there, but I know what you're saying.

Speaker 1 But to be fair to Peter Dutton, I mean, Labor's polling after the voice just hanked and didn't come back. It didn't come back really until the election campaign was on.

Speaker 1 As I've said before, Anthony Albanese really lost his mojo after that because he had promised it.

Speaker 1 He thought he was doing the right thing. He thought the country was with him, that this was the kind of country he wanted to be.

Speaker 1 and he and he was wrong the vote showed he was wrong that yeah there was a lot of other reasons too but um so i i don't i don't blame peter dutton for taking a big message political message out of the we all we all sort of pontificate about why politicians should do that go to an election with a big idea he certainly did do that look We want to spend a bit of time tonight going through some of the election clangers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because these are the best bits of a campaign. I know it's not the bits you all like, it's the bits we all like.

Speaker 4 Oh, I think they like them too. I think people like them.

Speaker 1 Oh, don't you get those texts saying, why are you dealing with this flim-flam and silly stuff? Give us the policy.

Speaker 1 That's the Radio National audience.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they're your people.

Speaker 1 See, they really like the policy.

Speaker 2 My cheap podcast people love this stuff.

Speaker 2 There were a few big clangers, and I want you to start us off, Jacob, with some of the clangers.

Speaker 4 Take that away, Jacob. Your favourite clanger.

Speaker 3 So I think it happened on the second day of the campaign. It was on the Saturday.
So it's a bit. Started on the Friday.

Speaker 3 Peter Dutton, first press conference, I forget where it was, it was Sydney, I think, and he flips the script and he asks a question of his own

Speaker 3 of the travelling press pack.

Speaker 3 I mean, you're all experts in this space.

Speaker 8 I mean, does anyone believe that Anthony Albanese can form a majority government after the election?

Speaker 3 My favourite is the pause. It's a delicious pause.
And

Speaker 3 if you watch it back, it's almost six Mississippi's long.

Speaker 3 was he waiting for a no yeah and then he answers and he goes none of you'd think that none of you think that none of you think that no one thinks that did he believe that

Speaker 4 I don't know I think he did

Speaker 2 you wouldn't see himself up if you didn't believe it right it's pretty wild though because if you think about it he's saying this

Speaker 2 after a one-term government when this country routinely doesn't kick them out. So

Speaker 2 it's a pretty wild thing to think.

Speaker 3 I think he was trying to g himself up actually. I think it was a confidence thing.

Speaker 3 Big day. We're now campaigning.

Speaker 3 I've been waiting for this for years. It's sort of...
You've got to gee yourself up to do these jobs, I suspect, because you've got to eat a lot of bad stuff every day.

Speaker 3 And then you've got to get up and smile and sort of pull yourself out.

Speaker 2 Like he's smiling here.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's him smiling. That's him beaming.
That is him beaming.

Speaker 1 But, you know, to be fair, and I keep saying it, the polls were showing he was right.

Speaker 1 I interviewed a lot of pollsters, and in those first few weeks of the campaign, that's what they were saying.

Speaker 3 Actually, on that very day, there was an ABC YouGov poll that showed 10 seats that Labor had to keep to hold government. The previous month, they were miles behind.

Speaker 3 This is how quickly it changed at the end. That poll on that first Saturday showed Labor winning those seats.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but that was a rogue poll, right?

Speaker 4 That's what they thought.

Speaker 4 Everyone thought. Yeah,

Speaker 2 if you think about the strategy, right, the Peter Dutton strategy,

Speaker 2 through the West of Melbourne, he was going to win the West of Melbourne. That's your heartland, right? Mate, born and bred.
No!

Speaker 2 Like, people were like, what? Like, no, come on. Yeah, we didn't wash.

Speaker 2 There was this one campaign launch he did in, I don't know, some seat. Whose seat? I think that guy, Sam Ray with the hair.

Speaker 3 Oh, fantastic hair.

Speaker 2 There was a stump speech that Peter Dutton delivered on a weekend, and he looked so uncomfortable. And that was one of the early moments where I thought, hmm.

Speaker 2 This whole working class strategy looks like it's a little off. He just wasn't comfortable.
It wasn't like he was comfortable in that working class space.

Speaker 2 That doesn't mean a Liberal leader couldn't be, by the way. I don't believe that.
I think that strategy could work with a different pitch. That wasn't the pitch.

Speaker 3 Maybe that's part of it, I think. And maybe also him being uncomfortable and looking nervous so early in the election also tells you he wasn't fit for it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they weren't that fit.

Speaker 3 He hadn't been ready. So the previous year,

Speaker 3 I think he'd done one press conference in front of the press gallery in Canberra, and it happened about five minutes to question time. So it was never going to go long.
It was cut off. That was it.

Speaker 3 And it is a performance that you put on and

Speaker 3 it's analogous to a sporting event. The Prime Minister, by contrast, something happened between Christmas of last year and the 5th of January.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he stares down the barrel of death. That's what happens.

Speaker 3 And that'll sharpen your mind. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I joined him for a week on the 5th of January and we travelled to Queensland where he announced $8 billion for the Bruce Highway. He went to all these places that don't vote Labor.

Speaker 3 He went to Kuninura. He went to the Northern Territory.

Speaker 3 What he was doing, he had a small group of journalists and every day we'd throw a bunch of questions at him.

Speaker 3 I mean no one goes to Northern Australia in January. It's madness.

Speaker 4 It's madness. It is very madness.

Speaker 3 You're standing under

Speaker 3 a shed in Mount Isa, there's sweatshirts.

Speaker 4 Well, you were there, weren't you?

Speaker 3 And it was, well, I was just doing my job.

Speaker 2 Auditioning to get on the podcast.

Speaker 4 That's clear.

Speaker 3 That's my point was, he was doing push-ups, metaphorically speaking, on the first

Speaker 3 few days of January. And everyone else was like, what is he doing? Why is he doing this? Two things.
People have time to listen in January.

Speaker 3 They're more likely to listen to your message. And it showed he was hungry.
By the time he got to the election campaign, he was rolling at a million miles an hour. The other guy was warming up.

Speaker 4 Anyway, I've got another moment.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 It involves smooching but not smooching.

Speaker 4 Ah, you don't know your cracks.

Speaker 1 Maybe someone can guess. Can any of you guess what this moment is?

Speaker 2 Good one. Good one, Fran.

Speaker 1 What is it? Shout it out.

Speaker 2 Oh, boom, boom. There's so.

Speaker 1 It's the air kiss. You're right on it.
That was so awkward. Yeah.
Unnecessarily awkward.

Speaker 2 What was going on there, Jacob?

Speaker 3 That was deliciously awkward.

Speaker 4 It was like, oh, I don't like it. You've got to lean into those things.

Speaker 3 You've got to really just. I don't like it.
Savour the awkward.

Speaker 2 Fran's outraged by it. Why are you so upset?

Speaker 1 Well, I just thought it was bad form for me on the part of the bestie.

Speaker 3 Who's the baddie here?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, look, everyone got the narrative by now, right? The whole country knows that they're not besties.

Speaker 2 Well, she wasn't at the wedding, it's all I say.

Speaker 1 But no, you know, he invited her in the last cabinet and all of that. Everyone knows.
And then there she is, ready to do the right thing and embrace.

Speaker 4 He wasn't having anything. You can't go there because he's a little bit of a bad body language.

Speaker 1 Was keeping them apart. So

Speaker 4 it was unnecessary.

Speaker 2 I thought she saved it really well with the air kissing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but I think the reason they didn't connect the air between those two is so thick thick after 30 years of factional warfare that you can't get through that.

Speaker 1 They're in the same faction.

Speaker 1 Well that says everything about the same social media.

Speaker 3 Which is the thing about politics, isn't it? Some of the bitterest rivalries are between the closest people, factionally internal to parties.

Speaker 2 It's like me and Fran, I'm always trying to knock her off.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 But, you know, all it does is just revive the whole thing. Like, and that's just unnecessary.
There is another moment. Enough.

Speaker 2 Let's show it.

Speaker 1 This is actually just. On the eve of the election.

Speaker 2 have you sold out your environment credentials for a motion stinking intervention salmon?

Speaker 3 The passion in which the way she holds it on that beautiful, whatever it is, oak or

Speaker 3 black butt, just

Speaker 4 gold.

Speaker 3 Great big snow.

Speaker 2 It was all very theatrical, wasn't it? It was very thespian society.

Speaker 1 If you're going to bring a salmon into the parliament, you want to do it theatrically, right?

Speaker 2 You want to deliver with that salmon. The uncooked salmon.
Now France got a bit of a scoop A or a scoop E.

Speaker 1 I've heard from very good sources that that salmon, that exact salmon, was getting a bit wiffy by 11 o'clock at night.

Speaker 1 And so I'm told that in the dark of night, as they approached midnight, in the backyard of...

Speaker 1 the senator's home, someone was digging a very deep hole to bury that salmon and get it out of the house because it stank.

Speaker 2 And isn't that, doesn't it? It's a beautiful.

Speaker 1 That is very Shakespearean, I think.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's it's a story, isn't it? There might be some azaleas growing out of it now. Yeah.
Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Somewhere on the inner south, there's this little...

Speaker 2 Look, we're all about political diversity, right? We're deeply like impartial, non-partisan types. And we actually are because we, all three of us, can't stand most of them, right?

Speaker 2 We love them and hate them equally. So that's how I can prove my impartiality to people.
I'm like, oh, do you know how I think all people are fools?

Speaker 2 Which means we must subject the teals to some scrutiny too.

Speaker 2 Now the teals, it's not just halos, it's not just a Beyoncé song. Look what happened here.
There was a husband.

Speaker 1 There was a husband.

Speaker 2 It always starts with a husband in my experience.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 1 Jacob, you're a husband. You might have some insight for this.

Speaker 3 Now you know why I've been invited on.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 4 We need it. On behalf of all husbands.
We're dying identity. We're denying everything.

Speaker 1 Her husband was filmed stealing her Liberal opponent's corflute.

Speaker 2 And it got me thinking, what is the use of a husband if he causes you this kind of distress?

Speaker 2 And, like, why do people have them unless they can help them?

Speaker 3 He was doing, he was, he was, the great clip that sort of preempts this is that footage.

Speaker 3 I think it was caught by maybe somewhere in the Liberal Party chasing this fellow down the road with a core flute under his arm.

Speaker 4 It's so comical, the whole thing.

Speaker 1 But husband, as a husband, would the husband have asked the candidate

Speaker 1 whether she thought that was a good idea.

Speaker 3 Sometimes they do things unilaterally and there's a rush of blood to the head and away you go.

Speaker 4 It's so funny. Look, I think this is a good idea.

Speaker 1 I've been in an episode of My Three Sons.

Speaker 2 If my husband, which I would never have,

Speaker 2 did that, I would be so annoyed with my husband that my husband would be my ex-husband.

Speaker 4 Oh.

Speaker 2 Because I'd be like, how embarrassing. I'm in the Herald's Sun now.

Speaker 4 You ruined my days.

Speaker 3 That's the only time you've got me onto the front page.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but there is the the other side of it. Was, darling, you did that for me.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And look,

Speaker 3 I think it shows, you know, that the teals do have a bit of sort of skullduggery up there still.

Speaker 2 They certainly do. I think everyone has skullduggery and rat cunning, and that's how they make it into this place, truthfully.

Speaker 2 And if you make it for some Puritan reasons, good for you, but it's unusual.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about Susan Lee.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 And we will start the conversation with this chat.

Speaker 2 Did I throw to that song about

Speaker 4 that?

Speaker 1 No, you actually didn't.

Speaker 4 You let me go.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we practice, we practice, and then she just...

Speaker 2 And then I just dominated.

Speaker 4 But she's still here. She's still here.
She's still here. She's still here.
She got it.

Speaker 1 She's a survivor. She's made it through the killing season.
You all know what the killing season is, yeah? Of course they do.

Speaker 4 They know everything.

Speaker 1 They know everything.

Speaker 1 I think she was always going to make it through the killing season, to be honest. What do you reckon?

Speaker 2 Unless

Speaker 2 something happened that didn't,

Speaker 2 which is a seismic thing. Like what, I'll tell you what the strategy was.
The Conservatives were waiting for a moderate to do something insane.

Speaker 2 Quit the front bench, weren't they? And then they had it all planned that it would create a domino effect, right? Like, huh, she's lost her support. What are we going to do?

Speaker 2 That's how the spill happens. This is how this Machiavellian stuff happens.
I know, because I love it. And I call people, I'm like, what are you going to do? What are you going to do?

Speaker 2 And so that's what was going to happen in their best case scenario. Jacob, clearly that didn't happen.
The moderates didn't fall for it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but there's a few who were really, really grumpy about the net zero back down.

Speaker 3 They were fulminating. They were saying, we've all worked so hard to hang on to these seats.
We've got to have a skerrick of climate policy that's semi-credible. And now you've gone and done that.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to win the next election, blah, blah, blah, blah. To hell with it.

Speaker 3 Let's burn the whole thing down and give Hasty the job.

Speaker 1 And so, the moderates don't do that. And in that party room, moderates do very little to do.

Speaker 3 There was a lot of huff and puff.

Speaker 4 And even...

Speaker 4 I think they muscled up. They just didn't have the numbers.

Speaker 1 They muscled up late. They muscled up late.
If they really wanted to muscle up, and they did in the end, you know, Dave Sharma did, Tim Wilson did, Andrew Bragg did, you know, they did. They did.

Speaker 3 And then it runs out of nature.

Speaker 2 Who did? Well, no, no. No.
They are numerically disadvantaged.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so there's about, well, there's about 18 moderates, about 18 hard conservatives, proper conservatives, and then there's a sort of group about the same number that are probably more on the conservative side, but they do support moderate Susan Lee.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 1 they got their candidate up for legal.

Speaker 3 They'll go over to a, if the right can get itself behind a single candidate.

Speaker 3 At the moment, they've got two, Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie, but when they decide who they want, the others will then, you know, it'll be interesting to see what that middling group does.

Speaker 3 People like Ted O'Brien,

Speaker 3 Simon Kennedy,

Speaker 3 and others like Aaron Violi, who are in the city.

Speaker 4 And other household names.

Speaker 3 All these other household names. Jane Hume, maybe? Jane Hume? Jane Hume's an interesting one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I reckon she's in the middle.

Speaker 2 She sort of is running her own race, but she's very pro-net zero being retained.

Speaker 3 She's also had a, like, she was blamed for quite a lot of the things that happened in the election campaign, particularly the work-from-home policy.

Speaker 3 After the fact, a lot of people sort of blamed her for that. Reality was it was signed off by the leadership, but she's worn a bit of it.

Speaker 1 The reality was, though, it was her to bring the policy up.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and then the other one was the immigration issue that didn't go so well.

Speaker 2 No, didn't go so well. Okay, I want to dramatically segue, but it's certainly linked to the curious case of Barnaby Joyce.

Speaker 3 They seem to have heard of him.

Speaker 2 Now, will he, won't he?

Speaker 1 I'm at the edge of my seat again.

Speaker 2 Will he join One Nation?

Speaker 3 Will he, won't he?

Speaker 4 Well, he has said he's seriously thinking about it. Well, hello.

Speaker 1 I mean, you've been thinking about it for eight.

Speaker 2 Yeah, not thinking about it.

Speaker 3 If you're not thinking about it, you're just not thinking about it, aren't you? Yeah. Look, I'll get in trouble for this one day, you know, in some estimates thing, but he's Dramedy Joyce, isn't he?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 That's what the guy...

Speaker 3 That's what the guy is.

Speaker 4 Why aren't you getting more in trouble?

Speaker 2 You're Dramaty Joyce.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to go there.

Speaker 3 But the guy...

Speaker 3 loves nothing more than to be the centre of attention.

Speaker 1 Even at the cost of his own leader and his own party on a good day for the

Speaker 1 little proud, there's Barnaby on the business. Because in the day for Susan Lee, there's Barnaby stealing the headline.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because I think in the minds of politicians that are used to commanding attention, they're indispensable.

Speaker 3 They are the reason things are either not going well because you're not using my talents or things are going well because I'm in the box seat. And I think it's a bit sad, actually.

Speaker 3 I think the Barnaby, here's a secret. Barnaby Joyce is the most fun you will ever have one-on-one as a journalist.
The guy is a hoot. His brain works in the most remarkable way.

Speaker 3 The synapses fire at a rate and in a way that you never experience with most politicians. That is true.
And so you just strap in, and he's also very indiscreet. So you just strap in for the ride.

Speaker 3 Loads of fun. But he's flawed.
He's deeply flawed.

Speaker 4 We all, Jacob. We all are, of course, we all are.

Speaker 2 And it gets in the newspaper.

Speaker 4 But the thing is now.

Speaker 3 He's been Deputy Prime Minister twice.

Speaker 3 He's led the National Party for quite a lot of years. He did an incredible double act, which no one thought was possible until it all fell apart for other reasons, with Malcolm Turnbull.
He did.

Speaker 3 They had this incredible.

Speaker 3 You wouldn't have put those two together in a million years, but they were able to work as a team with a very broad spread. Very true.
But there were no One Nation threats to the coalition.

Speaker 2 That was then when he was a pragmatist.

Speaker 4 Yeah, before he was. And then we got the bonking ban.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like, that's not forgetting that.

Speaker 3 That's all history. That's all history, isn't it? Anyway, I think it's a little bit sad, and I don't know if it ends all that well for him, if he goes down the One Nation road.

Speaker 1 Well, his colleagues are telling him

Speaker 1 it won't end well for him, and they're really angry at him, and they're really pissed off at him, and they're really hurt, I think.

Speaker 3 I think the interesting one was actually Matt Canavan in the last few days.

Speaker 4 Smate,

Speaker 3 and was a mentor. Barnaby brought him up, worked for him as a chief of staff for a long time.
Canavan has been quite vocal at condemning what Barnaby's doing.

Speaker 3 Now, that is, I think, to some extent, Canavan talking to the National Party where loyalty matters to the party. And I think he's on the way.

Speaker 2 Look, there's a few other things happening that I want to chew the fat with. Social media ban.
Yep.

Speaker 2 Should adults be in the ban?

Speaker 3 Should adults be in the ban.

Speaker 1 Some adults should be in the ban, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I can think of quite a few.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 I feel humiliated to say that.

Speaker 3 I don't know I'm there anymore. Like, I just, I'm not part of that.
I kind of, yeah, steer clear of it.

Speaker 2 Well, the racism, the homophobia does get a little boring sometimes but I tap back in.

Speaker 4 Yeah tap back in.

Speaker 2 See how it's going. What are the kids doing today?

Speaker 1 Look it's a world first this this band right? And it has its detractors. There's a lot of very smart people you know who I admire a lot

Speaker 1 including you know the likes of Patrick McGorry and others who don't think this is necessarily going to work, don't think it's really right just to blame social media for all the the pressures on our kids and the the terrible statistics about our kids about the levels of self-harm and things like that and the anxiety levels.

Speaker 1 So, there's a lot of people cautioning against it, saying it won't work. But the world is looking on.

Speaker 1 The government is getting a lot of kudos from a lot of places, including Jonathan Haidt, who I'm sure many of you know, who wrote that the bestseller in the US about the anxious generation, I think it's called.

Speaker 1 And, you know, who are looking on Australia and saying, good on you, because this is a barbecue stopper. And the PM tapped right into that early on.
Parents are worried about their kids.

Speaker 1 I'm sure there's some of you here are worried about your kids being online in their rooms all the time. Don't kids read books anymore.
Don't kids talk anymore.

Speaker 1 Don't kids answer and talk on phones anymore. No, they don't.

Speaker 2 Well, I can assure you they do do all those things too.

Speaker 1 Well, some kids.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I think some of the Prime Minister's blunt instrument kind of get out and play sport. Oh, yeah, we couldn't play any more soccer in our house.
Yeah, no, no.

Speaker 2 That does not mean that we're not also on social media.

Speaker 1 No, no, that's true. And just because not every kid's going to get out of school,

Speaker 3 there's no question that kids who want to get around it will get around it. But it's the signalling, the overall message.
I can tell you as a parent, it would have been great to

Speaker 3 tell my kids, no, it's illegal. It's illegal.
This is legal.

Speaker 3 You're going to go to jail if you do this.

Speaker 3 As a parent, that kind of works.

Speaker 2 It's funny that you laugh at that, but I have a child that falls into this and will not get on social media because she's so law-abiding.

Speaker 2 And she has asked me about how it will be policed and whether she doesn't want to do the wrong thing, but if it happened, would the cops come around to our house?

Speaker 4 In Melbourne they would, Devin.

Speaker 2 I said yes, and then we'll go to jail. Your parents will be in jail.

Speaker 2 And no one will be able to raise you.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 PK.

Speaker 4 That's drawing.

Speaker 2 I thought it's called ethnic parenting, Fran.

Speaker 4 And it worked for me, and it's going to work for her.

Speaker 2 She's fine. I want to go a bit deeper, though.
Year and review. Has anything happened this year other than the election win?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 He had

Speaker 3 a meeting with Donnie. Oh, no.

Speaker 2 He did. Oh, we really waited for that too, didn't we?

Speaker 1 You know, in the end, he played it just right. I really did.
You know, I thought for a while,

Speaker 1 this is starting to look a little awkward.

Speaker 1 And then when he said that Donald Trump didn't have a mobile phone, that was a low point for me.

Speaker 4 He's got his number now.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well. You could just, you know, text him in the middle of the night he's up

Speaker 1 but slide into his DMs I think in the end you know Australians were kind of like yeah don't you go running off to the American president I think they kind of liked it and and Labor sort of picked that out up and got that got that just right I reckon even though the coalition was trying to make a meal out of it saying if you can't even get a get a meeting with our closest ally, what are you?

Speaker 2 Jacob, I want you to share something that I think I've heard you frame this so beautifully, so I'm going to make you say it again. That this year was the perfect narrative arc story.

Speaker 3 Yeah, okay. Why? Okay, so we started the year, the Prime Minister in the dumps, people writing him off, including people close to him, saying, Yep,

Speaker 4 he's just not.

Speaker 3 Well, not finished, but like he's unfortunately our salesman, and he's not very good. That was the sort of vibe of it.
And they were really, really worried.

Speaker 1 And they put a lot of salespeople around him, if you notice, too, during the time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well,

Speaker 3 they sharpened the whole thing up.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it ends hugh grant like in a wedding it does so it's like he's slayed that

Speaker 3 yeah i come up i win a victory i'm like losers you didn't know and then he takes on the you know he takes on the sort of political ogre or the dragon yes the guy over there the orange one yeah slay you know sort of slays him not dead but like charging

Speaker 2 the girl oh it's got it all it's it's got it all and then his dogs even performed well yeah

Speaker 2 like because my dog's on meds.

Speaker 4 Like, you know, my dog could not do that at a wedding.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's a beautiful arc, I agree. And it's a sensational year for the Prime Minister.
And the wedding, to be honest, Jodi was his finest moment. There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 2 Oh, good choice. Yeah.
Good choice.

Speaker 1 Good choice. But

Speaker 1 in terms of what they're doing with this huge victory,

Speaker 1 to get serious now, before we come to your questions.

Speaker 9 Huge victory.

Speaker 1 What have they done with it? Much or a lot of people saying,

Speaker 1 you know, he's sitting back, he's too cautious.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think the knock on the Prime Minister is that

Speaker 3 he's not using this political capital that he's earned, built up.

Speaker 3 He lacks ambition. He's not trying big, bold things, and he's going to fritter it away.
I'm actually starting to disagree with that narrative.

Speaker 3 I've kind of written things and said things along those terms myself. Like, what is this 94-seat majority for?

Speaker 3 The backbench is, they're quiet as sort of church mice. They don't say boo.
The point is, I don't think that's right anymore. And I've got, I'll point to three things.

Speaker 3 I think the social media ban, sure, you bring that in, but there are risks. There are loads of naysayers.
I think that's a big thing.

Speaker 1 I don't think that's a risk at all. I think that's a barbecue stopper.

Speaker 3 And then the second one is

Speaker 3 this pact that he's done with Indonesia. That's a big deal.

Speaker 3 And what he's doing in our Pacific region, the ring, the sort of arc above our country, looking to the north with Papua New Guinea and others, that is big stuff. That will have a lasting legacy.

Speaker 3 And then I think the Environmental Protection Bill, that is spending political capital. That will annoy a whole bunch of very powerful vested interests.

Speaker 3 It's something he's wanted to do for a long time.

Speaker 4 Oh, come on.

Speaker 1 Come on. He could have done it before the last election.
He put the climate on it.

Speaker 3 It would not have been the bill that it is now. No.

Speaker 3 It wouldn't have.

Speaker 2 Oh, I love this, Argy Bargie. I'm going to sit back.

Speaker 1 Well, it's true. I mean,

Speaker 1 Tanya Plibersek was the minister. There's that name again.
Just before the election campaign, she had the Greens ready to do the deal, and the Prime Minister stepped in and said no.

Speaker 2 And he stepped in because he was scared of losing an election in WA.

Speaker 3 Remember, he only won in 22 by three seats. Those three seats were in WA.
He was worried about a backlash from the resources sector. Roger Cook claimed to have killed it that week.

Speaker 4 We were talking about a year ago.

Speaker 3 That's exactly right. An election changes the country when it's as dramatic as the one we had on May 3.

Speaker 3 The Prime Minister is now using that big majority to do something he knows will annoy a lot of the mining interests.

Speaker 3 That's what I mean. He's spending political capital.

Speaker 1 He is spending political capital, but he's got a lot of it. So what is, there's plenty of people now saying, but what's he going to do with the big thing, the economy, right?

Speaker 1 There's plenty wrong with the economy at the moment, and Labor can see it, and the next budget is going to be tough for them.

Speaker 1 Things are going up, inflation's going up, interest rates look like they could be going up, the debt's going up.

Speaker 1 So they've got some problems, and there's some big structural problems we've got, which is these huge spending programs that Australians want, the NDIS, the aged care reforms, the childcare reforms, they want all that, but it costs money.

Speaker 1 There's hard decisions to be made.

Speaker 1 Will he make them? Now they've made decisions on housing and they're pretty popular decisions, things like the 5% deposit and

Speaker 1 which is a demand side. They're slow on the building, but I think that's just their fault.
I think, you know, builders are hard to get and it's hard to do that. But they've got to do more on that.

Speaker 1 So the question is, is the Prime Minister going to take those kind of risks that won't be popular

Speaker 1 to spend some of this capital, or is he going to wait and kind of massage it through and give the signals through before the next election and then promise them and then go again?

Speaker 1 And I think there are a lot of signs that this Prime Minister, his number one goal is to win a second term.

Speaker 1 And really entrenched, he says he wants to make Labor the party of government, which it's never really been.

Speaker 1 And he wants to make that transformation. But there's others sort of

Speaker 1 clipping at his heels, champing at the bit to say, come on, let's use it. His treasurer included, I think.

Speaker 1 So I think, you know, I think there's a lot of people watching to see how big and bold this Prime Minister is going to be.

Speaker 2 If he wants to do something, next year is the year, though. Because then we're, with our short election cycles, he's in.
dangerous territory, right?

Speaker 1 There's a thing I've said a lot over all the years I've covered politics, and we'll end on this, Jacob, because I know you'll take this message to your heart, which is that governing is hard.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. It's really hard.
She's deep.

Speaker 2 Governing is hard. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You go shallow, I go deep.

Speaker 4 Boom, boom.

Speaker 1 Jacob, it's fantastic having you here tonight. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much for having me, buddy.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Jacob Greg. Good luck.

Speaker 3 I'm so glad I'm escaping before the questions.

Speaker 2 Thank you very much, everyone. Thanks, Jacob Grieber.

Speaker 4 See you, Jacob. See you, take care.
Yeah, thanks, Jacob.

Speaker 2 And I think I should look after my microphone better.

Speaker 2 Can you hear the bells ringing, Fran?

Speaker 4 Members on my ride? Yes, yes.

Speaker 5 Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker 2 If you are a regular listener to our podcast, you'll know that's our question time segment, which is good because at the moment there is no question time.

Speaker 2 Parliament has adjourned until February, when it will start again. Because that's what we have a question time every week.
No, because we work hard at the ABC. Tell them that at Senate Estimates.

Speaker 4 Fran,

Speaker 2 where's our first question coming from?

Speaker 1 I think it's over here, Pique.

Speaker 2 Good.

Speaker 10 This one's a little bit long-winded, and I apologise, a little bit of a double-barrel.

Speaker 1 If it gets too long-winded, we'll cut you off, you know.

Speaker 2 Fran, be kind. She's the first one up.

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 11 I heard you talk a little bit about this on the pod, and I was thinking about it post-election when we were doing the post-mortem, was about how the irreconcilable differences between the Nats and the Libs,

Speaker 11 and how it's uncertain.

Speaker 10 They had the little split, a little divorce.

Speaker 1 And in those moments, I was thinking with the moderates, why don't they just side with the Teals?

Speaker 10 Why don't they have a coalition on that front?

Speaker 11 What is stopping them?

Speaker 1 And so, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts further on that.

Speaker 10 Can they, will it be possible ever, if ever?

Speaker 1 And then the second

Speaker 10 was about, I know you've been complaining about on and on on the pod, and I respect you for it, the lack of a real opposition. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 10 Will there, if they don't reconcile these differences, will there ever be a real opposition?

Speaker 1 Well never say never,

Speaker 1 but not in the short term. Didn't Sarah Hanson-Young say that she's they're the real opposition?

Speaker 2 Yeah the Greens are claiming that, although I'm not quite sure about that. On your first question, I actually asked that directly to...

Speaker 2 It was a liberal moderate and the answer I got which is what would you consider a loose union with these guys?

Speaker 2 Because they've got quite a few seats and it seems to me numerically like this could work and obviously then they could do a metropolitan strategy, right?

Speaker 2 Because they wouldn't have to be thinking about the regions or, you know, more conservative liberals and stuff. And that and he said,

Speaker 2 and I just, it kind of crystallized it for me. They've spent so much time attacking us and trying to destroy the Liberal Party, we couldn't.
And then I realised how personal it is.

Speaker 2 So if they could get over that, right, it's a bit like saying if the Labour Party didn't do well, they obviously did, but let's say in the future they don't do well, why don't they just get together with the Greens?

Speaker 2 Well, have you seen how much they hate the Greens?

Speaker 2 It's kind of a bit about that. However, your point more broadly has a lot of logic to it, right? In terms of how to appeal to people, who they are.

Speaker 2 So I do think it has maybe future merit, but right now it's not what they're counting.

Speaker 4 They're not answering.

Speaker 1 And these people who have joined the Liberal Party, many of them when they were young in their 20s, they love the Liberal Party too. I mean, they want to be Liberals.

Speaker 1 They don't want to be Teals and the Teals don't want to be Liberals.

Speaker 1 But I think really at the heart of this is the fact that the teals once upon a time many of those candidates not all of them but many of them who got elected as teals

Speaker 1 would have been liberals you know they would have been logical like a legispender like a legro spender for instance maybe Sophie Scomps I'm not sure I don't want to put words in their mouth but these are the the types of women that might have put their hand up at one time to be to run for the Liberal Party because they you know share some of their economic conservatism for instance some of those things and it what it does I think writ large is it it demonstrates the problem in the Liberal Party at the moment?

Speaker 1 You know, do they have a women problem? Yes, they do. They barely have any in their ranks that says it all.
And they lost their blue ribbon heartland seats to these women, these teal women.

Speaker 1 And that, you know, that's

Speaker 1 a major loss for them and a signifier that they have got something very, very wrong.

Speaker 1 And until they address that, forget joining up with the teals, they've got to address that to be able to get a voter base base back.

Speaker 4 Can I say something? Yeah. Just little.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 right? I get that argument. But remember how the Labour Party never thought realistically they'd win a seat like Melbourne back? No, that's true.

Speaker 4 So, I'm not saying no. It's doable.
It's doable.

Speaker 2 They could win some of the seats.

Speaker 1 Well, they did, but they won

Speaker 1 Zoe's.

Speaker 2 Chelson won Zoe's seat. Just.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he won it. Oh, right.
And

Speaker 1 they nearly won North Sydney. So, yes, these are still, you know, there's a lot of Liberal people in those seats who've always voted Liberal.
But at the moment, they're not doing it.

Speaker 2 Anyway, they're not going to go into a happy family, I ask. That's what you're asking.
The other question, though, your second of your double barrel, is,

Speaker 2 are we ever going to get a good opposition again? Yeah, I think we will, by the way. Yeah, I think it'll all fix itself.
I do. Yeah, well, it's.
I don't know when or how

Speaker 2 or any details to help you with this thesis I have, but I've watched politics swing fast. So, yeah, it's

Speaker 3 likely, sir.

Speaker 7 Are we ready to go? Yeah.

Speaker 7 This is a bit of a comment and a statement and a question.

Speaker 2 I'll make it a question.

Speaker 1 Let's make it a question.

Speaker 7 Anne Richards, who was the first and last Texan governor, she said, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu.

Speaker 7 Famous words, and I agree with it. And I think the Albanese government has started setting up that table and getting people and community groups and unions in particular.
I'm a union man.

Speaker 7 In my working life, 40 years, I've had my workers' rights eroded.

Speaker 7 And now they're finally coming back and we're getting the seat back at the table and I think that's where productivity is going to come from.

Speaker 7 And sitting down with a tripartite agreement with business government and unions and community groups, would you agree that that's kind of the Albanese government philosophy of getting back to that consensus type of politics?

Speaker 1 I think Albanese is by nature a consensus kind of person. I think that is his nature, really.

Speaker 1 And if you've watched him over the years in the parliament, you've seen that he's the one that often makes the deals across behind closed doors, across the aisle.

Speaker 1 He's widely liked across the chambers.

Speaker 1 So, yes, I think that. But I also think that, you know,

Speaker 1 we see at the moment Labor inviting the unions back to the table,

Speaker 1 others back to the table. But then, of course,

Speaker 1 the next government might come in, it's the coalition. They bring their constituents to the table.
So we got the report today from

Speaker 1 what's the format.

Speaker 2 The jobs for mates one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, jobs for mates report. Let's just call it that.
And it showed that both levels of government do too much of this putting their own people in, you know, jobs for mates.

Speaker 1 It's dysfunctional, doesn't give us the best outcomes as Australians. We do it far more than other nations, similar nations.
It's basically a disease inside our democracy.

Speaker 1 And I remember way back when John Howard won in 1996, and one of the things he was briefing to his team and sort of said openly is that you need at least two terms in government because you need to embed your people across all the agencies.

Speaker 1 And that's what happens, and it's not good.

Speaker 1 But, however do I think it's best to bring for any government to bring a wide constituency to the table?

Speaker 1 Yes I think it is because the more representative the people around the table the better policies.

Speaker 2 And there is that's a really interesting point about the tripartite like approach because I think broadly I think Anthony Albanese is very pro-business and big business, right?

Speaker 2 Like I think that's kind of his legacy to the sort of annoyance of the Greens and others.

Speaker 2 So while I think the narrative of maybe the right-leaning media is that he's too nice to the unions, and I think the unions are getting sort of a seat that they didn't under the coalition government, I think that's true, I don't exactly think he's snubbing big business.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't think big business is like suffering. They're on their knees, you know, like, oh my goodness, we're in this socialist economy now, and they're really struggling.

Speaker 2 I think that's the kind of approach he's taking. And I think that's what happened with the EPBC bill.

Speaker 1 And I think you're right about that. And I don't think it's just a political strategy, strategy for Albanese.
I remember many years ago during the election that Bill Shorten lost with when he was.

Speaker 1 Which one?

Speaker 2 He lost two.

Speaker 1 He lost two. The 2019 one.

Speaker 1 When he was spending all that money and taking, you know, putting more taxes on people to spend more money on other people. And it was a real class warfare kind of language from Labor at the time.

Speaker 1 And privately, Anthony Albanese was saying, this is no good.

Speaker 1 You know, this is not what we want to be.

Speaker 1 We don't want to be dividing Australia like this.

Speaker 1 We need everyone in business and

Speaker 1 the people who need a hand up. And that's always been his philosophy, his political, well, for a long time.
I mean, he was a raging lefty in his youth, of course.

Speaker 1 But yeah, for a long time, that's been his political philosophy.

Speaker 2 Is anyone wearing a Joy Division t-shirt?

Speaker 2 Just asking. Do we have another question? Yes, we do.

Speaker 12 In the Labor Party history, the Christian right was hugely responsible for the party's many different splits over the years.

Speaker 12 Are the Christian Right responsible for the next great split in

Speaker 3 the Liberal Party?

Speaker 12 Or is there more factional complications for the Liberals that the public don't get to see

Speaker 12 experimented in the media or described in the daily politics of the parliament? And if that's all way too heavy for the podcast,

Speaker 12 would more Aussies be engaged with politics if more husbands were being stupid on national television during campaigns?

Speaker 2 I'm going to take the naff one first.

Speaker 1 Let's hear it for the the husbands, I say. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Look, I'm not against a husband.

Speaker 2 Can I just get on the record I'm not against husbands? Because I don't want that to be the story that comes out tonight.

Speaker 2 Useless husbands are my issue.

Speaker 4 Like, husbands that don't. You're enough with the husbands.

Speaker 2 He asked about the husbands.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 on your Christian right thing, I don't think, I'm not saying that there's not a tendency of some that are Christian or evangelical in the Liberal Party, because there are.

Speaker 2 But I don't think that's like the hard fault line. I don't.
I think it's a different thing.

Speaker 2 I think it's populists and some of those populists are Christian conservatives, but populists versus small, our liberal, really small government, non-interventionists.

Speaker 2 I think that's the battle going on in the Liberal Party.

Speaker 2 And people think it's just culture wars, big, but if you look at what those culture wars are about and what those factional lines are about, I'm getting very wonky, but I do study this quite closely, it's more about that, that, like the populist, you know, make America great, Australia Great Way for success, or the Tim Wilson school, which is less government, let the market decide, less intervention.

Speaker 2 And those strategies are really different. And that's what's hard to marry.
Now, they've always existed to an extent in the Liberal Party, but not like this.

Speaker 2 And the right is being galvanized by an international populist movement.

Speaker 1 That's true. And I think, in terms of

Speaker 1 the Christian right or the Christian community that's been enlisted, in a sense well it's what happened way back in America way way back

Speaker 1 when they knew they wanted to change for instance the the the abortion laws and they knew they wanted to it was basically around race really but they enlisted the moral majority the Christians in in the United States and it took decades before they got Donald Trump in to you know then give them the policies they're getting now that good Christian that he is but there is there is some enlisting of of Christians you know and branch stacking and we know about it in Victoria, because they're a block.

Speaker 1 They're a block of people that will come over because they largely agree with, I think, a lot of the culture war issues, to be honest. So I don't know that it's the fault line.

Speaker 1 I think, in a sense, it's a cynical use of that voting block, in a way.

Speaker 2 And you see some of it with obviously trans or abortion, but I think in a compulsory voting country,

Speaker 2 people aren't that into it. Like, people are like, what? Like, what? Like, I don't think they think about it too much.
Do we have another question?

Speaker 9 Hello.

Speaker 6 With the rise in polling numbers with One Nation in the news lately, a lot of the news has talked about how that's affected the strategic decision-making of Liberal Party members and national members.

Speaker 6 I'm wondering, could this also have an effect on

Speaker 6 the Labour Party? Because I'm thinking particularly about outer suburban seats and members of the Labour Party that may be socially conservative and

Speaker 6 how the Labor Party might have to balance this new reality or new polling numbers.

Speaker 2 That is such a good question. It is.
It is, because if you look at the preference flows that come from One Nation, they often do actually split, right?

Speaker 2 Like, I think they more dominantly go to the lips, but they do split. Like, One Nation voters are often blue-collar workers.
They're not secret liberals at all.

Speaker 2 And so, will that influence the politics?

Speaker 4 I don't know, Fran, will it?

Speaker 1 I was hoping you'd answer that one.

Speaker 1 I think it will on some issues and in some seats. And as you say, some Labor candidates are socially conservative.
And they'll probably, if they're in

Speaker 1 an outer suburban seat, they'll lean into that where they can. So yeah, I think on some issues it might do that.

Speaker 1 I mean, Labor's really got a lot of its sort of vision steered left because the Greens are there. taking a lot of what might have been one day once their their constituency.

Speaker 1 But Piquet's right, it is happening there on the right too. So I think we will see that.
I'm just trying to think of... Oh, I've got an example.
Good, go for it.

Speaker 2 I've been cooking it up and the wonderful producer, Lara, have we shouted out enough for her?

Speaker 4 Lara!

Speaker 1 Let's hear it for Lara.

Speaker 1 She is fantastic.

Speaker 2 Sometimes she feeds me information.

Speaker 4 She feeds me information.

Speaker 2 She thinks her brain's going a bit off.

Speaker 2 And she's mentioned that Anthony Green in our special episode. Who listened to it? You should.
Yeah, of course you did because it's Anthony Green. Yeah, his name got you to listen to it.
Whatever.

Speaker 2 Whatever. That's why we had him on.

Speaker 2 Said that One Nation is a threat in the seat of Hunter, for instance, to Labour. So that's a place where it's a real active thing going on.
They're polling very high.

Speaker 2 There, of course, we're outside of the election cycle, so don't believe the polling because it's all bullshit right now. But

Speaker 2 theoretically, people find them attractive.

Speaker 2 And when you say, will it affect the Labor Party in terms of policy, I'll give you a really big example where it will, and it already is, although they're trying to carefully frame it, immigration numbers.

Speaker 2 like it's obvious like they're already like freaking out about immigration because immigration is obviously the easy thing to be upset about when you feel like you can't get stuff do you like how I did that I can't get a house I can't get on the tram that is annoying there should just be more trams but if there aren't enough

Speaker 2 facilities for you, then you will be annoyed about the number of people being brought in. So I think Labor is alive to that.

Speaker 2 I personally will tell you, my analysis is that they're not managing the narrative very well yet. It could get away from them.
I do think they need to do more work.

Speaker 1 I also think they didn't manage the numbers that well.

Speaker 2 I mean the numbers

Speaker 1 really soared.

Speaker 1 You know, trust me, Labor's alive to this. They've been alive to it for the last 30 years because it's knocked them off several times.

Speaker 2 But they've neutralised the boat issue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they neutralised the boat issue by veering right. Yeah, on it.
So in answer to your question, yes, in part, Piquet's right, that's the perfect.

Speaker 2 But an excellent question about about that influence, because we think of it only about influencing the right wing of politics, which is silly, because the thing about the right and the left is they combine from behind.

Speaker 2 And there are actually more synergies when you go hard left to hard right.

Speaker 1 And also some issues are just broad and they're in the centre and immigration is one of them. You know, I think the government, all governments for a long time let

Speaker 1 international student numbers just get too high. They didn't want to fund the unis properly.

Speaker 1 They allowed the unis to rely on the money from foreign students. It's got way out of whack and therefore it's easy prey.
And so I think that there's some elements where the centre

Speaker 1 is,

Speaker 1 you know, has moved in a sense to the left and the right on different issues and governments have to pay attention there.

Speaker 2 But there's a whole chunk in the middle that really don't care. I don't know.

Speaker 1 You don't think? Not about some things.

Speaker 2 We'll have a fight about it later.

Speaker 13 You've talked a lot about how disciplined this current Labor government has been, especially when compared to the last two governments.

Speaker 13 And I was just wondering if you think that there is anything that's likely to break that discipline and make some of those younger, more ideological members really decide to break ranks and go against Albanese?

Speaker 1 Yes, I think there could be. I think the environment is one of them.
I think that was one of the elements of why Labor was happy to go with the Greens on the EPBC, because I think there is pressure.

Speaker 1 A lot of the new members, of the 94 members, were younger.

Speaker 1 You know, they're really into issues like the environment, like climate change. And yeah, so I think there will come a time.
They're not going to stay quiet and mouse-like forever.

Speaker 1 And I think the leadership knows that.

Speaker 1 And the leadership knows that. And Anthony Albanese has to manage that huge party room.
And they need those young members to stay with them.

Speaker 1 And, you know, they suffered, I think, they didn't handle the Fatima Payment thing particularly well, I don't think.

Speaker 1 And so I reckon there are issues that will bring

Speaker 1 vote those younger members out. And I think, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, one of the best lines, because I quote other people when they've had better lines than me, so credit to him, Peter Lewis from Essential. One of his best lines is that elbow needs an elbow.

Speaker 2 And I think that's a really good line. Like, you know, the role he played for a long time when he was like a street fighter.
And that's when I got to know him. He was...
You know, he'd push on things.

Speaker 2 And sometimes, you know, he lost some of those battles, by the way.

Speaker 2 So sometimes you need to have the battle of ideas within a party to land on the right place rather than just sort of blind discipline. Now blind discipline, can I say, also has its merits.

Speaker 2 It means that people are like, oh, the government's doing its job. So, you know, it can't be so wild that people think you can't govern yourself.
But there's a fine line.

Speaker 1 If you're not a party of ideas, then you're going to die off, basically, aren't you? That's right. And there is this big swelling of young, perhaps more left.

Speaker 2 members, I think, you know, or have they all joined the Greens?

Speaker 1 Well, the Greens, last time I looked, didn't have that many members in their party room.

Speaker 2 No, but can I say the other thing is, I think a lot of the new MPs feel a lot of loyalty to Anthony Albanese for even being there, especially like my favourite MP, the member for Petrie, who was like signed up to be the candidate and then like, oh, won the election.

Speaker 2 You know, there was all sorts of... I find hilarious stories of people where they just didn't think they were going to win the seats and they did.

Speaker 2 So those people feel rather loyal, so they're just not ready to muscle up yet to the Prime Minister. And if you meet him, he seems all friendly and he's got the cute dog, but he's quite formidable.

Speaker 4 He is.

Speaker 2 Can I say, I have had such a good time, have you, Fran?

Speaker 1 I've had a great time. I always have a great time in Canberra because you're always such a politically kind of active and aware audience, and like I say, coming out on a Tuesday.

Speaker 4 And also, they're all so good-looking, did you notice?

Speaker 2 And well-dressed, you know, high-income place.

Speaker 2 Thank you for laughing at my jokes.

Speaker 4 Can I say?

Speaker 2 Because Fran's given me some side-eye tonight, like you're pushing me.

Speaker 4 Push the

Speaker 2 work is going to cancel me later. Don't be tripping.

Speaker 2 Can I say thank you so much for coming, honestly. When I heard that they sold this many tickets, I was like, do they really want to see us?

Speaker 2 And allegedly, you do. Through all of your behavior, I want to thank, and so does Fran, my co-partner in podcast crime, Lara Heaton.
Yes, our wonderful producer, Lara. Who is please clap for Lara.

Speaker 4 The thing about,

Speaker 2 and of course, all of the people who've worked on the tech and all of the other jobs that you don't see, because Fran and I, like, we come in

Speaker 2 just ready to talk. And, you know, we do some work, but it's all these people who like make this stuff happen.
So without them, like, it wouldn't happen.

Speaker 1 So let's thank them again.

Speaker 2 I want to thank the Canberra Theatre for inviting us, which is, they actually invited us, which is nice. Like, we didn't even have to say, would you like us to do a show?

Speaker 2 And I will

Speaker 2 end with this parting message. Fran has always thought this is psychotic that I suggest this.
But next time you have a friend with you at dinner,

Speaker 1 you are shameless.

Speaker 2 Grab their iPhones and say, and do this with their face ID, like, do you mean, so I can get their face face if you can't get in really fast.

Speaker 4 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Or just tell them to give you your password. And download Politics Now, which is where Party Room lives, so you can spread the word of democracy.

Speaker 2 It's not just an ego project, although if you look at the reviews, people suggest it is.

Speaker 2 So if you would like to write some reviews which suggest that I care about democracy and not just ourselves, I would love that. Thank you for coming.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much for coming.

Speaker 1 And a healthy democracy only flourishes when people come together and come out and talk about ideas and ask questions. And it's just wonderful to see.
So thank you so much.

Speaker 4 It's always enjoyed. Thank you.

Speaker 2 That's it for our Politics Now, the party room live show. Thank you again to all the beautiful people who came out and joined us live.
See ya.