Are politician perks a 'pisstake'?

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Speaker 1 A lot of people have been throwing the B-word around lately. The entire AI industry is a bubble primed to burst.

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Speaker 1 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 1 Politics is the brutal game of arithmetic but no one's going to vote for you don't stare to do something.

Speaker 1 We've always been about the planet but we've got to make sure that people have their daily needs met. People are starting to see that there is actually a different way of doing politics.

Speaker 1 Welcome to the party room. I'm Fran Kelly on the Gadigal Land the Eura Nation in Sydney.

Speaker 3 And I'm Sarah Ferguson host of 730 also joining you here in the Sydney studio. Fran filling in for PK while she undertakes some secret mission.

Speaker 1 A secret mission.

Speaker 1 But it's great to have you. It's great to be in the same studio.
Piquet and I were always miles apart so it's nice to have a buddy in the studio.

Speaker 3 A buddy across the great bar that we've got between us here.

Speaker 1 Look, the summer break is so close, I can almost smell it. Well, for some of us, anyway, lucky ones.
But I have to say, politics is showing no sign of slowing, Sarah.

Speaker 1 I just asked the communications minister, Annika Wells. You know, this was going to be her big week with the start of the under-16 social media ban.

Speaker 1 This is where all the trouble started for Annika Wells because she caught those flights to the UN to spruce the ban world first, but the flights cost nearly $100,000.

Speaker 1 And, you know, that started the whole thing. She's been in the bunker really ever since, fending off questions about various expenses claims.
It's gone on and on and it still goes on.

Speaker 4 I absolutely accept that those figures prompt a gut reaction in people. I honestly accept that.
And I agree with everybody that parliamentarians' entitlements should be scrutinised.

Speaker 4 I've said that from the get-go. I've always said that.
It's

Speaker 1 a busy week. Like I said, the opposition is fast forwarding its plans for tougher immigration rules in a bid to fend off One Nation.
We haven't seen the plan yet, but it's coming.

Speaker 1 One Nation really has hit a bit of a purple patch. It's growing support, I think it's tripled actually, in the latest polls since the election.

Speaker 1 And Barnaby Joyce, of course, has jumped shipped to One Nation. He's thrown his Acubra hat in the ring with Pauline Hanson.
No surprise, but huge disappointment to his friends and colleagues, Sarah.

Speaker 3 It is a lot. It's a long list.
Was there ever a time in politics when things actually did fade a little earlier than this?

Speaker 3 But anyway, since it's a lot, let's get going with the entitlements because obviously everyone has been talking and talking and writing and writing about it.

Speaker 3 Phil Currie political editor of the Australian Financial Review. Phil, welcome to the party room.

Speaker 2 Thanks Sarah. Hi Fran.

Speaker 1 Hey Phil, great to have you back.

Speaker 3 Now Phil because you've been doing this for a wee while, you must have seen more than your fair share of expenses scandals over the years. How does this one compare?

Speaker 2 Oh it's up there.

Speaker 2 It never ceases to surprise me that

Speaker 2 people still do this,

Speaker 2 abuse the spirit of these entitlements because it always ends the same. I think it's about every four or five years you get a blow-up like this.

Speaker 2 You get one example, as you mentioned in your intro about the trip to New York by Annika Wells, and then suddenly everyone starts looking at everything else and

Speaker 2 all this stuff comes out and it just spreads like a contagion.

Speaker 2 Normally it ends one of two ways.

Speaker 2 Either the Prime Minister of the day announces that the minister is going to pay back some money and they're going to review the rules, or they pull out some stuff on the other mob and then the prospect of mutually assured destruction sort of calms it all down.

Speaker 2 But neither of those sort of happened in this case. So it's sort of

Speaker 2 still not yet. So it's still running.

Speaker 3 Quick question, Phil. You just used the word abuse of the system in relation to the New York flights.

Speaker 3 Tell me why that one, as opposed to the ones where people are bringing their families, why is that an abuse?

Speaker 2 Well, it's a bit different. I mean, it's not an entitlement.

Speaker 2 It's just the cost of doing

Speaker 2 It's not hard to say.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, that's not an entitlement, like family reunions and travel allowances and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 I just thought it was ludicrous to pay that much money to go. I was at that event in New York.
We travelled there with the PM. We knew that Annika Wells had had to delay.

Speaker 2 She was meant to fly over with us on the PM's jet. and the rest of the entourage, but she had to delay it because of Optus.

Speaker 2 And I was at that thing at the UN, and I remember I observed to my friend Tom McElroy at the Guardian,

Speaker 2 I said,

Speaker 2 I wonder why she bothered coming because the Optus thing was running really hot at home and it was not resolved. And I thought, it must have cost a fortune to get her here at the last minute.

Speaker 2 I said something like that to Tom, and

Speaker 2 she's going to get fried for leaving the Optus thing, both of which were astute observations, as it turned out. But

Speaker 2 just common sense. I mean,

Speaker 2 no one would have minded had they said, look, the minister can't make it because she's got this problem at home in her communications portfolio. And then when they saw the price of those airfares,

Speaker 2 someone should have said something or a red flag should have got up. It wasn't an abuse per se, but it was, it was just,

Speaker 2 it turned out as it turned out for a reason. I mean, $100K to

Speaker 2 go to New York. And she didn't have a big role.
Like, she just MC.

Speaker 1 That was a bad call, but that actually wasn't her call. Like, the minister is not the one who signs off

Speaker 1 on the cost of the ticket. But the others feel that we've rolled out since then.

Speaker 1 These are her judgments, the family reunion flights, you know, the decision, you you know, to bring your husband over with you because you've got tickets to the Formula One in a box or you've got tickets to the Australian Open.

Speaker 1 You know, family entitlements rules are there and they're made not by the, it's, you know, it's important to note they're not made by the politicians.

Speaker 1 They're made by an independent agency of the parliament called IPIA, the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Committee.

Speaker 1 They're there because politicians, in acknowledgement, politicians spend a long time away from family.

Speaker 1 But you've got to be judicious about it, right so you know maybe you think about it and if you want to bring your husband to the corporate box at the formula one maybe pay for that one or some of those yourself if you have to go to orange for a weekend for a stakeholders conference because you're the minister then maybe you can claim that one because it happens to be your kid's birthday or something like think about community standards because look at what the older MPs who don't get their names in the paper when this turns out exactly look how they treat them right going it's usually the young ones and we should it's not just Annika Annika either.

Speaker 2 No. Oh, yeah.
It's not just Annika, and that's interesting. Stans and Young flying her husband back and forth to Canberra, you know, busy lobbyist.

Speaker 2 They have a house here using the family reunion for that. It's pretty whiffy, you know, Don Farrell and his wife sort of saunting around the country.

Speaker 3 Phil, can I just jump in as the devil's advocate just for a moment? Of course, Annika Wells is the sports minister, so the things she goes to are fun.

Speaker 3 Are we just against this because they're appearing to have fun?

Speaker 3 It's not just the flight, but it's because it's for something fun. Are we anti-fun?

Speaker 2 Well, we are a little anti-fun. No, we're not anti-fun.
I don't think we're anti-fun. Look, there is an element of that, but you'd have to remember.
And I do want to sort of elaborate here a bit.

Speaker 2 I mean, Annika really wanted the sports portfolio. She held it in the last term, and she really asked for it when Albanese redid his front bench after the election.

Speaker 2 So she willingly wants to do the job because she does enjoy the fun element of it. I'd point you to a column in our paper today by Tracy Holmes.

Speaker 2 I mean, she does have a bit of a reputation for leaning into the fun side of being sports minister. So it's not like...
She's a chatmean.

Speaker 2 Well, she likes going to lots of things and getting tickets for lots of things.

Speaker 2 And she's nicknamed the Minister for Scarves. So, and she,

Speaker 2 or tracksuit Annie, as she's known as well. And so she sort of enjoys that side of the job.
I don't want to sort of beat up on her too much on that. But look, I was speaking to people.

Speaker 2 I've been speaking to a lot of people in Labor the last couple of days. And everyone thinks the family reunion stuff is really important.

Speaker 2 You know, they say if you want to have young parents, predominantly women in parliament,

Speaker 2 then you need it.

Speaker 6 There are a lot of people who complain that politics has been only for people who are older, over 60 old blokes, but not for people who represent all different parts of our community.

Speaker 6 And it's got to be possible to be an MP, to be able to travel, to be able to work right across the country, and also be a parent.

Speaker 6 And I know from my own experience, I find it really hard being away from family. And

Speaker 6 it's a big part of the job.

Speaker 2 So I'm not asking for some of the things that we're doing. Politics has one of the highest rates of family breakup and divorce and kids going weird out of any profession because they're away so long.

Speaker 2 But what people are worried about

Speaker 2 is, as one minister said to me, is the piss take, right?

Speaker 2 That's the word this minister used. And it's not just sort of pushing the envelope on family reunion, but it's the non-family reunion entitlements like

Speaker 2 Wells going to Adelaide.

Speaker 2 for a friend's birthday party and sort of rigging up a meeting with a with someone a state minister on a saturday Saturday afternoon to justify it, you know, to justify the trip.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but Phil, they've all done that and they all have done that for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but

Speaker 2 the older ones don't do it, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, some of them do it.

Speaker 1 What about the Prime Minister having a minister's meeting ahead of a Labour fundraiser, you know, an hour-long meeting? I mean, that is age-old.

Speaker 2 And that's called the piss-take, right? No one believes that's fair to income.

Speaker 1 I think the piss stake is closer to, you know, the old adage used to be the pub test.

Speaker 1 We've got one young listener, Zach, who suggested perhaps we could change the does it pass the pub test adage to does it pass the group chat test. And I think that's great advice.

Speaker 1 Good one, Zach.

Speaker 2 That'll steer you on.

Speaker 3 I've been trying to figure out what the right phrase is.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't begrudge any minister. Like, if Annika Wells's husband wants to go to the Formula One, that's fantastic.
She's got tickets. That's great.

Speaker 1 But some of those things you can pay for yourself because parliamentarians get paid.

Speaker 2 fairly well, you know.

Speaker 1 And I think the test is, and the reason, it's not that we're anti-fun, Sarah. I think it's that, you you know,

Speaker 1 the Australian population is looking, and a lot of people go, well, I would love to go to the Formula One and the Australian Open and all these things, the AFL Grand Finals.

Speaker 1 You know, how lucky are you? And you are lucky. So you just got to recognise that and take that into account so that you are really on the side of the angels when it comes to any test.

Speaker 1 I think that's...

Speaker 2 It goes to a mindset. And, you know, I was talking to someone who this minister and this minister's spouse, like half the cabinet was offered offered tickets to Lady Gaga on Friday night.

Speaker 2 And they had sort of thought, no, it's just not worth a reputation for a couple of hundred bucks, right? Even though they're probably, you know, there's no harm in taking them and declaring them.

Speaker 2 And that's the, you know, I always default to Jay Wetherill when he was Premier South Australia, when

Speaker 2 there was all this outrage because the politicians

Speaker 2 got a pay rise and he was getting beat up at a press conference. And he said, look, if the public had their way, they wouldn't pay us.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to take this pay rise.

Speaker 3 I think Albanese runs the same line, doesn't he?

Speaker 2 That's gold.

Speaker 2 So that's the sort of mindset that the politicians deal with. That's the starting mindset that politicians deal with the public.
And that was before a cost of living crisis. All right, well

Speaker 3 let's have a broader look at it, Phil and Fran, because we are talking a lot about Anna College, and she has been bearing the brunt of the criticism. But of course, it has emerged once this got going

Speaker 3 that. as Fran said, they've been doing it for a long time and that whatever you say, Phil, it's not just the young people.

Speaker 3 I know what you're talking about, but we know it isn't just them. So what have we found out this week?

Speaker 3 We found out that family reunion travel for federal MPs and senators has cost us, taxpayers, more than a million dollars last financial year. Don Farrell turns out to be

Speaker 3 not a millennial, Phil. Top of the family travel tally over $41,000 in the past 12 months.
I think that included a dinner in Unaroo, didn't it? Then we've got Fatima Payment.

Speaker 3 Of course, Fatima Payment's from Western Australia, so you need to take a couple looks.

Speaker 3 And then remember this gentleman who came third in the league table, a certain Mr. Peter Dutton,

Speaker 3 hasn't been a federal MP since May, obviously, so he scored quite highly.

Speaker 3 Actually, Annika Wells ranks number 34, ring a bell for family reunion spending. She's 18 on the list of Comcar use and 17 for international travel.

Speaker 2 So she's a long way down the list.

Speaker 1 That's a long way down the list. I was struck by that figure, Phil, because I watched Insiders, you're on the Insiders Cash this week, and the suggestion came up that

Speaker 1 this revelation about Annika Wells' spending was orchestrated by someone inside Labor.

Speaker 1 I mean, according to that list, Sarah said she's 34th for family reunion spending, so she's not the worst offender. Can you tell us any more about if this was a hit job?

Speaker 2 No, because I don't know. Samantha Maiden said to me some couch.
No, I don't know.

Speaker 2 There are a few people, yeah, it's politics, right? So there's always a lot of envy, and especially when someone like Annika, who's

Speaker 2 an up-and-comer, you know, and so there's a few people, you know, sort of quite a little bit of Schadenfreude going on inside some sections of Labor, but I have no, I have no, no direct evidence that, you know, any of her colleagues have FOI'd this stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's all there, it's all there on the public record, as we know, because people have been trawling through everyone else's records. But I just go back to the basic point.

Speaker 2 Whether you're talking about Annika Wells or Don Farrell or anyone else, you just got to be smart about the way you use this stuff, right? Because when it comes to it comes out.

Speaker 2 This is where we've got to be careful.

Speaker 2 The disconnect that I see is starting to really grow between this government and the punters. And it's not just over this, it's over transparency in general,

Speaker 2 whether it's the FOI laws or whatever else,

Speaker 2 as Barbara Pocock said last week, this is a government gesture rather than real action.

Speaker 2 And this to me is sort of feeding into that bigger picture that this government is starting to look arrogant and detached.

Speaker 2 And you can argue the toss on these things about family reunion and should have gone to Threadbow or should Don taking his wife to Uluru or whatever.

Speaker 2 But if you just actually sit back and look at it from the perspective of people, and people are doing it really hard, and they, you know, and you know, the political establishment is sitting here arguing the toss on this sort of stuff about whether the ground price is...

Speaker 2 Seriously, let's just ground ourselves a bit here.

Speaker 2 It's really bad out there. It is really tough out there.
You know, and inflation is back on the rise again. And that's why the smart politicians, you know, that they get that, right?

Speaker 2 But there's some people who just think, oh, it's in the rules. I'm going to use the rules to the full extent of the rule.
And that's where my radar is.

Speaker 2 And that's where I think this government has to be careful.

Speaker 1 And I think, Phil, that's why Anthony Albanese wanted to go out and end this year with something that wasn't in that category at all. It was a real,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 people's vote, if you like, on the social media ban, the under-16 social media ban.

Speaker 7 This is world leading. This is Australia showing enough is enough.

Speaker 7 And the world, including through, I note,

Speaker 7 some leading media global organisations who are here, just to confirm, is watching.

Speaker 1 He's aware that parents around the country are really agitated about kids' social media use, and he really wanted to push this through.

Speaker 1 This is what they were supposed to be talking about at the end of the year, so that people went off in the summer holidays feeling really good about this government, taking action, listening to them, being tapped into their concerns.

Speaker 1 And that ban, which came in, we're recording this Thursday morning, came in yesterday, it's been completely overshadowed by the entitlement issues.

Speaker 1 You know, Annika Wells, the minister who is meant to have responsibility for this, you know, was virtually in witness protection for most of the week.

Speaker 1 It was the e-safety commissioner, Julian Mann Grant, who had to do most of the heavy lifting.

Speaker 1 But it has been brought in.

Speaker 1 There's teething problems already. We've all seen them.
This will be tricky. But potentially, is this still a politically winning pursuit?

Speaker 1 And will this still rescue the government, if you like, from this bin fire of this week

Speaker 1 and the arrogance and detachment that you talked about?

Speaker 2 What do you think? I think it will

Speaker 2 outlast the events this week because we'll get bored of this entitlement stuff pretty soon because we'll run out of things and we'll just move on.

Speaker 2 You know, the social media ban is going to take a long time to work. And

Speaker 2 I like it that the government is open about that.

Speaker 2 They're not going to try and declare success straight away. I mean, as the parent of a teenager affected by this, and

Speaker 2 my daughter,

Speaker 2 she doesn't like it, right?

Speaker 2 When Albanese said in Perth the other week, he did that 6-7 routine for the kids. Oh, yeah.
He said, oh, he's just trying to suck up to us for banning TikTok. That was a reaction factor.

Speaker 3 Actually, Kier Starmer did the same thing. They're all warted.

Speaker 2 But, you know, kids who are sort of having their accounts shut down, they're like the sort of unlucky ones, if you like.

Speaker 2 It's really about, as Annika Wells and others say, it's about the ones who've yet to get a mobile phone, the kids who yet reach 12 or 13.

Speaker 2 It's about saving them from getting on this drip in the first place.

Speaker 2 You know, as a parent, I'm glad they're doing it. You know, I can see exactly why they're doing it.
Trying to prize the phone out of a kid's hand is just impossible. It is.

Speaker 3 Quick question, Phil. Can I just jump in with a quick one? I noticed Anthony Albanese yesterday was careful,

Speaker 3 deliberate to include Peter Dutton.

Speaker 7 I do want to acknowledge as well Peter Dutton on a day like today.

Speaker 7 This legislation passed the parliament last year with bipartisan support. Peter Dutton's someone who has always cared about

Speaker 3 decency or was that sharing the responsibility for what unfolds?

Speaker 1 It's trying to stare down the opposition's criticism of it, yeah.

Speaker 2 I think a bit of both. It was actually Peter Dutton who first proposed this.

Speaker 2 It was in his budget address and reply.

Speaker 2 It may not have been

Speaker 2 exactly as it's been enacted, but it was, you know, it was similar. I think it was under 16s or something.
And Dutton spoke about the evils of social media on kids.

Speaker 2 So, and he had teenagers at the time. So that's right.
But also, I think to your point, Sarah,

Speaker 2 you know, there was sort of rock-solid bipartisanship around this up until a couple of weeks ago, and then the opposition started making noises about revelling in its ability to fail. Yes,

Speaker 3 I think we heard the Shadow Communications Minister, I think she was on Raph Epstein's program in Melbourne, supportive of the ban itself because it's hard to come out in fierce opposition to that.

Speaker 3 But she found a way to criticise it, criticise the rollout.

Speaker 8 The ban itself and protecting kids has my full support. The rollout by the government does not.
I have been questioning their ineffectiveness of including platforms.

Speaker 1 We now are hearing that's a narrow goat trick, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Yeah, which I, you know, it's a bit mean-spirited given this is you know, it's going to be hard enough to make this succeed, given you're up against the might of the tech giants and the guile of kids who know how to get around everything.

Speaker 3 Makes Julianne McGrant a very interesting character.

Speaker 1 Well, yes, indeed. And when I interviewed her this week on the Radio National Hour, and it was a terrific interview because she made it clear that, you know, yes,

Speaker 1 it's not going to be perfect. It's the first one.
The world is watching. And indicated that over the next, is it going to be weeks, months, years,

Speaker 1 they're going to amend this. You know, I got the sense that already, you know, there's people who think that they'll change the date, the age of the ban and things like that.

Speaker 1 But, you know, just to finish it off here, I think there will be ongoing focus on whether it works. And I did a straw poll around the office with the parents.
And Phil, you've just added to it.

Speaker 1 And, you know, there's 12-year-olds and 14-year-olds texting each other saying, Albanese hasn't got me yet. You know, there's kids playing, I'm still standing on TikTok.

Speaker 3 But Julian McGrant, were she here, she would say they knew that was going to happen.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 9 There are going to be teething problems. There are going to be hiccups.
We're expecting that.

Speaker 9 We're expecting that there'll be a different story every day about a child here who got around this and that.

Speaker 9 We are taking a

Speaker 9 longer-term view. This is not, you know.

Speaker 1 Look, while this has been playing out, the entitlements thing in particular, the opposition's been largely sort of leaving the field for Labor to deal with it.

Speaker 1 But, Phil, we are apparently going to get the coalition's immigration policy probably this week. Susan Lee made that pivot to immigration very quickly after they announced their net zero decision.

Speaker 1 And I wondered at the time, was this to get out in front of the right-wing competitors in her own party room or to get out in front of One Nation? Because the polls since the election have shown

Speaker 1 One Nation's vote tripling since May at the expense of the coalition's vote largely.

Speaker 1 So, Phil, what are we going to get from the coalition and why is she sort of moving full steam ahead with this so quickly?

Speaker 2 Well, it's both France has to get ahead of the right-wing and One Nation because they're sort of

Speaker 2 combined. Look, it's the same reason they had to rush forward the decision on net zero.

Speaker 2 The original plan was to announce that policy sometime in next year, first half of next year.

Speaker 2 But the Nationals moved first, and then with One Nation surging in the polls, and then pressure on Susan's leadership, you had no choice. And it's the exact same thing.
You look like a lame duck then.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, everyone's got a view except us.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the main driver of One Nation's popularity, Fran is migration. It's not net zero, but everything is sort of flowing from that.

Speaker 2 It's been blamed on housing and everything else and the cost of living and things like that. So they've got to get out on the front foot on migration.

Speaker 2 But again, it's the same problem between the moderates and the conservatives.

Speaker 2 How far do you go? So I think it'll be next week now.

Speaker 2 They were going to release it this week, but they're having a brief moment of joy of watching the government squirm for a change after a pretty horrible few weeks.

Speaker 2 So they've decided to push it into next week, as I understand.

Speaker 3 And is Susan Lee, Phil, Fram, what do you think? Is Susan Lee going to be able to resist the language that the moderates were so keen for her not to use, not to hammer home?

Speaker 3 Particularly that term, yes, mass migration.

Speaker 1 She won't use that term.

Speaker 2 No, but

Speaker 2 the moderates, I've spoken to some moderates who said they're pretty happy with it in terms of it doesn't single out races and you know and

Speaker 2 it avoids that sort of language, but at the same time it's it's it's it's fairly forward-leaning. Use that term again.

Speaker 1 What do we know about what's in it?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 yeah, I had it. They're not going to have one of the criticisms of the government is the government's refused to set a long-term population on migration target, even though they said they would.

Speaker 2 The Liberals aren't going to do that, but it's going to sort of work backwards, Fran.

Speaker 2 The migration target will be based on capacity to take people. So if there's not enough housing or not enough roads or whatever else, it'll be calibrated backwards from capacity constraints.

Speaker 2 How do you work that out?

Speaker 1 I remember governments talking about that in the past. 100%.

Speaker 2 And the trouble is it's all going to be principles. But they are going to, the net overseas migration is the one, that's the scary number, right?

Speaker 2 That's tourists and people people coming and going, Australians included. That's still at about 310,000 a year.

Speaker 2 So they're talking about getting that down on a permanent basis to somewhere between 160 and 220. I don't know what number it is.

Speaker 3 It is coming down already, though.

Speaker 2 It's coming down. I think the government got a broad goal of 260 to 100.

Speaker 1 260, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but the Libs are talking about 160 to 220, right?

Speaker 3 Can I just raise a part of this that could get could get, actually could get ugly? And this is the focusing on removal of illegals.

Speaker 3 So both One Nation and the Liberals are clearly talking about what to do about the large number of people who shouldn't be here, who are ready for the power.

Speaker 1 By illegals, we mean undocumented, right?

Speaker 2 Although their visas are actually expired.

Speaker 2 So, we had a story the other day.

Speaker 2 There's about 100,000 people who came as students or temporary workers, and then they just stay when they're visa, then they try to stay, and they can stay in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1 And they use every appeal mechanism they can do.

Speaker 2 They last visa.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they lodge asylum appeals and try and get other visas and stuff. And they're clearly gaming the system in a lot of of cases.
And

Speaker 2 they're hard to remove.

Speaker 3 But how does that land? Because we are in the context, obviously, those incredible scenes in the United States.

Speaker 3 The reason why that number is so high, Phil, as you just said, it's because it is incredibly hard to remove them. So what are the mechanisms you're releasing?

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

Speaker 2 That they would somehow try and limit their rights of appeal.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 We'll have to wait and see when they release this thing. But there is a caveat that it's only going to be broadly principles with detail to come later.

Speaker 2 but they'll be able to talk tough on principle but yeah you'd sort of think if it was easier to do this it would have been done by now and

Speaker 2 but there's you know something like a hundred thousand people and and the fastest growing cohort um of these what they call overstays or legacy cases are

Speaker 2 foreign students so you come over and you do

Speaker 2 It's not so much people come over and do degrees and things, you know, and go back. It's just people who come over and do some shonky course as a way of getting in, and then

Speaker 2 you just stay.

Speaker 3 We're obviously going to talk about One Nation in a minute, but but there's just an interesting Redbridge poll that was in the Financial Review in November that found that One Nation was more trusted than Labor or the coalition to deal with the influx of migrants.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that dovetails with another poll this week, the Resolve poll, which found that I think this, I was really struck by this figure, two in three Australians say what they want immigration paused until housing supply catches up with it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean it is it is

Speaker 2 it's a real issue.

Speaker 2 Yeah that that was our poll that same poll had one nation's primary vote at 18% which is almost three times what they received at the federal election and the Liberals' primary vote falling to the record low of 24 and nearly all of it going to One Nation.

Speaker 2 So you can sort of see why

Speaker 2 they're responding the way they are. And the government is really worried about it too, but

Speaker 2 they're almost silent on the issue. They just don't talk about it.
Like when they when Tony Burke a few months ago announced the new

Speaker 2 late, he was late in doing it,

Speaker 2 before the start of the financial financial year. He announced it after the new.
He put out a three-paragraph statement about how many, the new permanent intake for next year.

Speaker 3 A day they're talking about immigration is a day they are losing, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, everyone's aware that it's a huge problem out there.
I mean, people are very sensitive about it, and

Speaker 2 there's a general feeling there's too many people coming into the country.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and there's a look, look at us. We're talking about One Nation a lot at the moment.
Barnaby Joyce made the jump this week. We've all been waiting.

Speaker 5 Working with people such as Pauline, I think I have

Speaker 5 a fellow traveller and I have great respect for the work that Pauline has done. She has driven the political agenda.

Speaker 3 I feel like there should be a very significant sound effect.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. Is it a splash? What is it?

Speaker 2 Zebedee's springing of the sky.

Speaker 2 Is it a belly?

Speaker 1 He's now officially sitting in the lower house as a One Nation MP when the House resumes.

Speaker 1 He's the first One Nation member in the House of Reps since 1998, apparently. And this move, I didn't know this, Phil.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you're all over this, gave One Nation official party status, which incidentally gives Pauline Hanson a huge pay rise because she's now a party leader. Is that right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right. I wrote that last week.
Oh, this week, yeah, 100 grand.

Speaker 2 And I do believe Pauline, she said, that's not why I did it because she's not the sort of person who's motivated like that.

Speaker 2 But it is probably more go to the motive of Barnaby because there is a rough plan here. And, you know, given the nature of the individuals involved, it may not come to pass.

Speaker 2 But that at the next election,

Speaker 2 Hanson will run again, but she'll be 74 by then. She'll probably retire sometimes afterwards and hand her vacancy, her spot, to another Queenslander, and then Barnaby becomes leader.

Speaker 2 And then he gets, because they will have a minimum of five senators then, if he wins the New South Wales spot, or five MPs, which is what you need for party status, then he gets the leadership role and the extra salary.

Speaker 2 And all his friends, well, now former friends in the Nationals, believe his motive all the way along is to get a leadership position and the extra income, which he denies.

Speaker 2 But it's just in the case of what happened this week with Joyce defecting to One Nation, they now have four senators and one in the House of Reps, so that gives them minor party status.

Speaker 2 And so Pauline gets 42%, 42.5% loading on the $239,000 backbench salary she gets. But that's just, but yeah,

Speaker 2 I'm not accusing her of being driven by it. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 I'm not either. I was just struck by that reality.

Speaker 1 Sarah, you interviewed Barnaby this week on 7.30.

Speaker 1 I spoke to Tony Barry. I was speaking to Tony Barry from Redbridge earlier this week, and he reckons this move of Barnaby Joyce to One Nation will lend legitimacy to the One Nation brand.

Speaker 1 I wonder what you think about it and what you picked up when you interviewed Barnaby Joyce.

Speaker 3 In answer to that question, first of all, I must say I am torn between... the lending of legitimacy and the it's going to go into a steaming heap.

Speaker 3 There was some interesting writing coming out of New England over the last few days with people saying, don't be ridiculous. We're not stupid.
We know what One Nation is.

Speaker 3 He cannot take whatever qualities he had with him and think that we're going to accept them in this, wearing this new cape.

Speaker 3 But on the bigger question, speaking to Joyce this week, I asked him whether he saw himself as part of the global movement,

Speaker 3 particularly obviously comparing him to the One Nation to the Reform Party in the UK and him as Nigel Farage. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 He tried to deflect the Nigel Farage comment by saying he was better looking than Nigel Farage.

Speaker 5 I think I'm far better looking,

Speaker 2 but no, I don't.

Speaker 3 There is no way in which I'm going to to comment on that.

Speaker 1 I might but I won't.

Speaker 3 Again it's the it's this is a serious question.

Speaker 3 Is this move to do with the Australian-ness of Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hansen that it is related sui generis related to Australian politics or are they connected to a global populist movement that includes Farage in the UK, Maloney in Italy, other countries in Europe and obviously the great gigantic MAGA movement in the United States now Which Pauline Hanson is very plugged into.

Speaker 3 Which Pauline Hansen is very plugged into. You know, so it is a huge tailwind, if you like, of semi-legitimacy, of political legitimacy.
Certainly within political science it's legitimacy.

Speaker 3 Whether it actually is reflected in what happens here. I don't know, but it's clearly, obviously, in their minds that they are part of something bigger.

Speaker 3 And Barnaby obviously sees the value for him in that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and Phil, just finally on this, I mean, we have compulsory voting, and I think that's a big difference to those countries.

Speaker 3 But Barnaby, in answer to that question, said yes, but politics here is changing very fast. You know, be careful.
You're trapped in that notion of compulsory victim voting.

Speaker 3 He said it's what made us slow to the global movement, the global populist movement, but it won't exclude us.

Speaker 2 Phil? Well, it doesn't exclude them, but it probably means compulsory preferential voting means they could never be a party of government as such. But

Speaker 2 the plan is, and he stated this openly, is to get a controlling hunk of the senate so you can still you know you can still wield an enormous amount of influence and and look at look at the influence

Speaker 2 yeah and look at the influence they've been wielding already we've just been talking about the liberal party having to jump to their tune on immigration and energy um you know so just just the specter of you know erosion has caused the liberal party to change you know to sort of to behave as it has in the last month so you don't you don't necessarily need to be a party of government but you can still exert influence and that's clearly joyce's mo on all this i don't don't know i don't know how people will respond to joyce who does not has not has not thought let me just put this to you phil on the questions of racial vilification that one nation has indulged in for many many years now up until very including and including up until very recently he doesn't have a good argument for how he feels about that it doesn't feel like it's his thing i assume it is it's not his thing he's not a nice guy and i look how he came out and supported the bill of willer family that's right but i but this is the thing if you talk to sort of strategists and even in labor uh and the libs they actually think,

Speaker 2 let's just very quickly, Pauline Hanson, you know, is One Nation, right? It's an eponymous party, but she even she realises she can't be there forever.

Speaker 2 And that's why they've bought in Joyce, because he's the succession planners that needs a big personality.

Speaker 2 Now, about three weeks ago, they quietly changed their name from Pauline Hanson's One Nation to One Nation. So they've got rid of the Pauline Hanson.

Speaker 2 This is part of the transition.

Speaker 2 You know, what surprised everyone the other week with the Burker was that that party was starting to get traction and it was starting to get mainstream support and then she goes and does a race race stunt like that and that's the sort of thing that scares people back to the Liberal Party.

Speaker 2 It's a bit like when the Greens got too far out there last time and they scared voters back to Labour. So Barnaby won't do that.

Speaker 2 And if you talk to strategists, they say if he takes over and she's gone and the party's still relevant, they could become, you know, because he won't do those stupid race stunts or those nasty race stunts.

Speaker 2 And so that they could actually consolidate.

Speaker 2 And that's then they could actually become more formidable

Speaker 2 in three or four years with him at the helm,

Speaker 2 if it all holds together. There's a lot of ifs, but between now and then.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of ifs, as former Labor leader Mark Latham told you when he's been through this. He jumped to One Nation.
As he said to you, Phil, it's all going to end in tears.

Speaker 1 I was struck by comments from

Speaker 1 another former, longtime former Nationals MP and friend of Barnaby Joyce, Ron Boswell, longtime crusader against Pauline Hanson and One Nation.

Speaker 1 In the Oz this week, he described One Nation as shouters and stunt performers. And then he went biblical and he said,

Speaker 1 like the prodigal son, Barnaby has taken his inheritance of political experience and wandered off. And we all know how that story ends.
Now, that ended with the prodigal son being welcome home.

Speaker 1 So I wonder if the Nats would be so open-armed. Phil, as always, it's great to have you on the podcast.
Thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 2 Oh, pleasure. Thanks for having me.
See you, Phil.

Speaker 3 Enjoy the summer in your tiny.

Speaker 2 We'll see you down there, Sarah. Okay.

Speaker 1 Questions without notice? Are there any questions? Members on on my round. Prime Minister has the call.
Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Well, the bells are ringing, and that means it's time for question time. And this week's question comes from Liam.

Speaker 10 Hi, Franco Pique. Liam here.
I work as a public servant, and I've been thinking about the government's social media ban for under-16s.

Speaker 10 To me, it sits in the category of these big public safety interventions and reminds me of policies like John Howard's gun reforms that were seen as contentious at the time but are now viewed as long-term successes by the majority of people.

Speaker 10 If this social media ban is going to be looked back on in 2030 years as a similar defining moment for Australia, what does the government need to do to get that right in terms of the policy, design and the communication?

Speaker 10 And what are the political or practical risks over the coming years that could stop it from becoming kind of a legacy achievement for the country?

Speaker 3 That is a very good question. I want to first pay tribute to my 7.30 colleague Jacob Grieber, who said yesterday when the ban came in, a whole generation of libertarians have just been born.

Speaker 3 Thanks to the social media ban, they'll rise up against the notion of government. Of course, failure, as Liam is asking, failure is always a risk.

Speaker 3 Now, Anthony Albanese tried to say yesterday that it was already a success. The fact that we were talking about social media, we were talking about the dangers, made it a success already.

Speaker 3 I mean, sure, he would say that. It's, of course, not strictly true because it has to work for it to be,

Speaker 3 for this, for this to have been a successful day yesterday. We need this to, the government needs this to stick.

Speaker 3 I want to listen to Julian Mongrant about this because she is the safety commissioner who designed this.

Speaker 3 She's interesting because she wanted a slightly different model than the one the government went with.

Speaker 3 She wanted one that was a little more graded in terms of who you went after in terms of harm because she knows who the big bad players are.

Speaker 3 The government chose to go with, if you like, a unitary system, a single ban or delay that captures all those big 10 companies for now at the same time. So that is, in a sense, risky.

Speaker 3 She thought it was slightly harder to explain to the public, but she has power now. And this is the thing, Liam, I think, that will

Speaker 3 decide whether or not this works. She has the power.
She will go now to the social media companies, ask them to demonstrate what they're doing.

Speaker 3 whether they are complying with the ban. However, here is a big thing that could stop it being the success, Liam, that you're talking about.

Speaker 3 And that is, is, she says the social media companies might purposefully kind of crash their age verification systems, i.e. make them not work very well.
I don't mean crash them on a certain day.

Speaker 1 They're not working yet, according to the Maestro poll.

Speaker 3 But she will, what she warns of, that they will actually...

Speaker 3 purposefully make them fail the age verification and then come back to the government and say, nice try, nice idea, it doesn't work. But she says we know that they're going to try and do that.

Speaker 1 We're watching.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I mentioned it before the interview i did on the radio national hour with the safety commissioner she was really signaling that they're going to keep monitoring this they're actually going to measure they're going to go into each of these companies and demand this data and they've got a whole huge compliance unit now doing this and they're going to calibrate it so that you know we will see changes as you say suggested liam to the policy design um and to the communication around it too but i do think it's it's interesting liam you've made a good point here about comparing this to the gun ban, John Howard's gun reforms, because yes, they were very contentious, but mostly who they were contentious with, and I think this is a real similarity with this social media ban, they were contentious with some of the key users for sure, you know, and a lot of those are constituents of the National Party particularly, but they were contentious with the gun lobby.

Speaker 1 And what we've got here is the gun lobby, and now we've got the big tech lobby. And that's who the government is fighting here, as Sarah suggested.

Speaker 1 Gigantic. And they are gigantic, and they are politically

Speaker 1 influential, as was the gun lobby back then. But these are different times and it's a different kind of lobbying power and it's global and the world is watching this.

Speaker 1 But you know, I think it's a good comparison you make. The risks are, as Sarah suggests, that they just can't get big tech to play ball.
And

Speaker 1 we know they're usually at least five steps ahead.

Speaker 3 At least if we remain not cynical while we watch what happens next so that we can test what happens without saying, nah, it'll never work.

Speaker 1 I'll just read you one thing. The Guardian today has a whole list of comments from parents and one of them was our song our son can no longer access his apps.
It's already had a profound effect.

Speaker 1 This morning he said mum do you want to do something with me after school today like putt-putt or something else to get all together.

Speaker 3 Well I think that's much more realistic than Anthony Albanese yesterday saying on 7.02 the kids are gonna they can learn instruments so we're going to have a whole lot of bassoon players that emerge from the summer.

Speaker 1 Well if they bring in a lot more subsidies for sport and things like extracurricular activity to school, like bassoons, that could be a good thing and that could help it along.

Speaker 2 It would be a good thing.

Speaker 1 We love your questions. Keep sending them in.
We're especially fond of the voice notes, which you can email to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

Speaker 3 Now, remember to follow Politics Now on the ABC Listen app so you never miss one of these marvellous episodes.

Speaker 1 That's right. That's it from us this week.
See you, Sarah.

Speaker 3 See you, Fran.