Latest / Inside Politics / The best and worst of 2024

Transcript

The best and worst of 2024 · Inside Politics

0:02
S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
0:05
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. It's Friday, December 20th. Well,
0:12
S1: if things are supposed to be slowing down for Christmas,
0:14
S1: nobody told our federal politicians because this week we had
0:18
S1: a mid-year economic update and we had a contentious debate
0:22
S1: about the coalition's nuclear energy plans. It is also our
0:25
S1: last podcast of the year. So today we are going
0:28
S1: to have a nice fireside chat between me and our
0:30
S1: chief political correspondent, David Crowe, where we look back at
0:33
S1: the political year and explore some of its themes. Welcome, David.
0:37
S2: Good day. Jacki.
0:44
S1: David, let's cover off on this week's news. First, we
0:46
S1: had the mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook released on Wednesday.
0:50
S1: Can you just tell our listeners briefly what is in
0:53
S1: it so they don't have to read it themselves?
0:55
S2: The key thing that's in the mid-year update.
0:58
S3: The primary reason we're here is to speak with you
1:01
S3: about the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook is a.
1:06
S2: I guess, a future of big deficits and higher debt
1:11
S2: than we were expecting, say, in the May budget.
1:15
S3: Are two surpluses in the first two years, a smaller
1:18
S3: deficit this year. And then even with some slippage in
1:22
S3: subsequent years, a $200 billion improvement in the budget position
1:28
S3: since we were elected, which means much less debt.
1:31
S2: There's no major announcement and new policy measure in the document.
1:35
S2: It takes account of recent policy decisions, such as the
1:39
S2: basic offer to young Australians to go easier on student debt.
1:43
S2: So the big picture is still one of huge pressure
1:47
S2: on the budget, but this is really just getting the
1:50
S2: numbers up to date so that it's a foundation for
1:53
S2: the government to then reveal what they really want to
1:56
S2: do ahead of the election campaign next year.
2:00
S1: Yeah. So basically it's I mean, there is a there's
2:02
S1: a $22 billion budget blowout. There's a future debt burden
2:06
S1: of $1.2 trillion, according to the Financial Review. And there's
2:11
S1: so-called hidden spending. So this is sort of off budget
2:13
S1: spending in the order of $90 billion, which is stuff
2:16
S1: that they can put up their sleeve and spend for
2:19
S1: an election campaign. This is not a great set of
2:21
S1: numbers for Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese to go forth
2:25
S1: and sell in election campaign, is it?
2:28
S2: That's why the election campaign will not be fought on
2:31
S2: these numbers before the election campaign. The government would absolutely
2:37
S2: want to have, and I think absolutely has to have
2:40
S2: a new economic statement or a budget. Remember that in
2:45
S2: the parliamentary calendar, there's a budget that's meant to be
2:47
S2: held on March 25th, followed by an election. Now they
2:52
S2: can change the timing, but I think they absolutely have
2:55
S2: to have a budget because you would not fight an
2:58
S2: election on these numbers. I regard this as a, as
3:02
S2: a document of of non-decisions. There's not enough in here
3:06
S2: to set out a better vision for Australia. There's no
3:09
S2: vision here for voters to sort of back the government.
3:14
S2: So labor will have to come up with a better
3:17
S2: policy plan, a more compelling document early in 2025. And
3:22
S2: that's when the election contest gets very, very real.
3:25
S1: Yeah. I mean, this myefo also sort of revealed an
3:29
S1: enormous amount of government spending, a real blowout in government spending.
3:32
S1: What has the opposition had to say about that?
3:34
S2: The language from the opposition is all about needing to
3:39
S2: scale back spending, and it is never about exactly how
3:43
S2: that would happen. So they're having their cake and eating
3:47
S2: it too. Classic political manoeuvre where you complain, complain, complain
3:51
S2: and you don't set out your alternative. And that's what
3:54
S2: we're seeing from the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor.
3:58
S4: It's clear they're walking away from a whole series of
4:00
S4: election commitments that impact Australians and in fact, a typical
4:05
S4: Australian family, as a result of what this budget tells
4:08
S4: us will be $2,000 worse off by Christmas without any
4:12
S4: kind of relief. Broken promises everywhere they promise. If you look.
4:16
S2: At their rhetoric, they say that we'll manage taxpayer money better.
4:22
S2: They say that they would be tougher on spending. Now
4:27
S2: Labor's going to use that all the way to the
4:30
S2: voting day. On what that means for cuts to health,
4:33
S2: cuts to education and so forth. And the coalition will
4:36
S2: be increasingly vulnerable to that kind of scare until they
4:40
S2: reveal what they mean when they say keeping a lid
4:44
S2: on spending.
4:45
S1: Let's go nuclear now. Last week, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton
4:49
S1: released the economic costings for the coalition's nuclear plan and
4:53
S1: according to the modelling, the plan is to build seven
4:56
S1: nuclear reactors around Australia, of course, and that will cost
4:59
S1: taxpayers $331 billion over 25 years. But the modelling doesn't
5:05
S1: talk at all about electricity prices for consumers, and it
5:08
S1: also assumes that Australia will be using a lot less
5:11
S1: electricity than is modelled under the labor plan, which relies
5:15
S1: on renewables. Can you tell us about what the modelling
5:19
S1: was and and what you made of it? David.
5:21
S2: The modelling was done by Frontier Economics, which has been
5:24
S2: around for a long time. They go a long way back.
5:26
S2: They know the energy sector and so they've done this modelling. Now,
5:30
S2: I think a really important point is that they've done
5:33
S2: the modelling for a scenario that uses less electricity over
5:37
S2: the decades ahead. This is called a progressive scenario. Labor
5:42
S2: prefers what it calls the step change scenario, where there
5:45
S2: is a bigger shift towards the electrification of the economy
5:49
S2: and a bigger economy using more electricity.
5:53
S1: Yeah. So some people have said, notably the treasurer and
5:55
S1: the government have said, well, if you rely on there
5:57
S1: being less electricity in the grid, then the economy is
6:00
S1: going to be a lot smaller. Is that the case,
6:02
S1: or is it just that sort of implicit in the
6:05
S1: coalition plan is that gas and coal will make up
6:09
S1: the difference until nuclear is up and running in about
6:12
S1: ten years time.
6:13
S2: The coalition assumes that there'll have to be more coal
6:16
S2: fired power over time, because we have to wait for
6:19
S2: the nuclear power stations to get up and running in
6:22
S2: the 2040s. When I've talked to economists just on background,
6:27
S2: you know, one of them memorably put it to me
6:29
S2: as the the policy you have when you're not having
6:31
S2: a policy because there's so many question marks about how
6:35
S2: this shift to nuclear would work and whether the economics
6:38
S2: of it would really work. And I think on that front,
6:42
S2: that's where the coalition are extremely vulnerable. And we saw
6:46
S2: that this week in the way that Angus Taylor responded
6:50
S2: to questions about what this would mean for prices, because
6:52
S2: as you pointed out, Jacqui, there isn't modelling here on
6:55
S2: what that would actually do to prices. But Angus Taylor
6:58
S2: says there will be a 44% cut in prices for consumers,
7:02
S2: because that's what what happens when you get a 44%
7:04
S2: cut in costs. I think anybody who's looked at the
7:08
S2: electricity bills over the last decade or two knows that
7:11
S2: what's happening on the cost side for the big energy
7:13
S2: generators doesn't necessarily translate into the price side for the consumers.
7:18
S2: So it's a big claim from Angus Taylor, and that's
7:21
S2: just a sign of how things are going to go
7:23
S2: through to the election campaign when all these questions become
7:26
S2: far more pressing.
7:39
S1: Let's stretch out a bit and look at the year
7:40
S1: more broadly. What have been the defining political issues of
7:43
S1: the year?
7:44
S2: I think the tax debate early in the year was
7:47
S2: a really big moment, and it's clearly something where Anthony
7:50
S2: Albanese thought that he could really seize the initiative by
7:54
S2: redrafting those stage three tax cuts.
7:57
S5: To make sure that every Australian gets a tax cut,
8:01
S5: not just some that I think Australians understand in their
8:06
S5: guts that that's fair.
8:07
S2: Peter Dutton initially said, you know, this is ridiculous. Let's
8:12
S2: call it an election on this because you're breaking a promise.
8:15
S2: And the Prime Minister was breaking a promise. But most
8:20
S2: people liked the new structure, and it seemed to get
8:23
S2: the government off on the right track at the beginning
8:25
S2: of the year. But as the year went on, we
8:27
S2: found voters were so aggrieved over the cost of living
8:33
S2: on so many fronts that they didn't really give the
8:35
S2: government a dividend for what it had done on those
8:38
S2: stage three tax cuts. And the year just turned into
8:41
S2: a really hard slog for Anthony Albanese and Labor because
8:45
S2: of those pressures on households.
8:48
S1: Yeah, so there was cost of living. There was also
8:50
S1: the issue of Gaza, which I think was just a
8:52
S1: sort of a tragic situation. And politically, just a really
8:56
S1: sorry to use this kind of imagery, but like a
8:59
S1: weeping sore for the government, it was very difficult for
9:01
S1: them to get on top of that issue, to provide
9:04
S1: leadership and to be seen to be even handed on it,
9:08
S1: which I think they did at least strive to do.
9:11
S1: What did you make of the sort of there was
9:12
S1: a lot of political conflict over the Israel-Gaza conflict.
9:17
S2: What Labour was doing was trying to hold the middle ground,
9:20
S2: really the worst possible place to be when you're talking
9:24
S2: about such a deeply divisive conflict as the Middle East.
9:28
S2: And Anthony Albanese was accused by the Greens leader, Adam Bandt,
9:35
S2: of being complicit in genocide in Gaza, which I thought
9:38
S2: was a totally overblown way to attack the government. And
9:43
S2: he was at the same time basically accused by Peter
9:47
S2: Dutton of being weak on anti-Semitism, which I also thought
9:51
S2: was an overblown claim to make against Albanese. Yes, there
9:57
S2: have been votes at the United Nations where Australia has
10:00
S2: not done what Israel has wanted. So, you know, there
10:04
S2: have been claims against the government on all fronts, but
10:08
S2: this has been sort of turned into an issue where
10:12
S2: it's become one of a test of strength, in a sense,
10:15
S2: for Albanese. He's portrayed as being weak on anti-Semitism, and
10:19
S2: I don't think weak on anti-Semitism is actually the the
10:24
S2: right way to look at it. He's tried to hold
10:27
S2: the middle ground, not always successfully, and he hasn't always
10:30
S2: moved fast enough or got the symbolism of the job
10:34
S2: right enough at key points. Yeah, but that's not weak
10:38
S2: on anti-Semitism.
10:39
S1: Sure. But it has been a proxy issue in many ways,
10:42
S1: I think, for the coalition to paint Anthony Albanese as
10:46
S1: as weak, as sort of lacking in basic leadership qualities,
10:50
S1: whether or not you buy that. What do you think
10:52
S1: Anthony Albanese's best moment of the year has been? I'm thinking,
10:55
S1: you know, he got engaged at the beginning of the year.
10:59
S1: The Bali Nine, I suppose, was a pretty good moment
11:01
S1: for him. He was on the world stage a lot.
11:04
S1: He did announce a surplus or his treasurer announced a surplus.
11:08
S2: Yeah, some of those moments seem to be lost in
11:12
S2: the fog of the year, don't they? The surplus of
11:15
S2: May 2024, when you've now got an update to the budget.
11:19
S2: That's not so rosy. Mhm.
11:22
S1: It's definitely easier to think about his worst moments. And
11:25
S1: I'm sort of thinking, you know the Copacabana controversy when
11:29
S1: he bought he bought the holiday home which was a
11:32
S1: resoundingly bad look I think we can agree. And that
11:36
S1: strange fight that he had remember back earlier in the
11:39
S1: year when he had that strange argument with feminist activists
11:43
S1: at a rally about domestic violence?
11:46
S6: To be clear, we did ask to speak, myself and Katie,
11:49
S6: and we're told that that wasn't possible. And that's fine.
11:52
S6: I respect the organisers right to do that.
11:55
S7: That's a full out lie.
11:56
S6: To do that.
11:57
S1: Well, what about his worst moments?
11:59
S2: I think some of the toughest moments for him were
12:02
S2: responding slowly on the. The airline upgrade issue. He was
12:08
S2: overseas when the news broke about the book, making the
12:12
S2: claim that he had been in touch with Qantas to
12:14
S2: get airline upgrades to business class and so forth. It
12:17
S2: took him several days to kind of rule out some
12:21
S2: of the key claims there, and I always thought that
12:24
S2: there was a bit of a double standard at work there,
12:25
S2: because of course, we knew at the same time that
12:28
S2: Peter Dutton had received free flights from Gina Rinehart, you know,
12:31
S2: a billionaire with a lot at stake in terms of
12:33
S2: relations with the government. But it was the slow response
12:37
S2: that really cost Anthony Albanese on that one. And I
12:40
S2: think that became, I guess, emblematic of of poor political
12:45
S2: movement at some of these key points during the year
12:48
S2: with a real cost. I think in the opinion polls generally,
12:53
S2: the engagement deficit was one of the big issues of
12:57
S2: the year for the government, the constant struggle of the
13:01
S2: government to clearly enunciate what it was doing in a
13:06
S2: compelling way that would encourage Australians to sit up and
13:10
S2: pay attention. It's something they're aware of, but don't seem
13:14
S2: to be able to counteract this idea that people are
13:17
S2: just switching off.
13:18
S1: Yeah. And what about Dutton? What was his best moment
13:21
S1: for the year or moments, do you think? I mean,
13:23
S1: his performance in Question Time was pretty good. He had
13:26
S1: Albanese on the ropes a lot over cost of living
13:29
S1: and over immigration numbers, which is sort of increasingly a
13:32
S1: concern for people, particularly in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, I guess.
13:35
S1: He's doing fairly well in the polls for a first time,
13:38
S1: you know, opposition leader for a first time government. He
13:41
S1: did pretty well, didn't he?
13:42
S2: His best moment was probably his budget reply speech in
13:45
S2: May because he set out a few policies, which is
13:49
S2: really what is generally done by an opposition leader that
13:53
S2: far out from an election.
13:54
S8: But by getting the migration policy settings right, the coalition
13:59
S8: can free up more houses for Australians. We believe that
14:02
S8: by rebalancing the migration program and taking decisive action on
14:07
S8: the housing crisis, the coalition can free up almost 40,000
14:11
S8: additional homes in the first year.
14:14
S2: And he came down hard against foreign investment in residential property.
14:18
S2: And I think that's something that a lot of people
14:19
S2: in the big cities can relate to. Um, I don't
14:23
S2: say that it would necessarily have fixed the problem of housing,
14:27
S2: but it's interesting that he was venturing ideas there, and
14:30
S2: it was quite a powerful speech. And we've seen that
14:32
S2: there's been a bit of a dividend for him on
14:34
S2: on the economic issues through the course of the year. Um,
14:37
S2: he has gained ground. I think there were weak points
14:40
S2: for him, though, um, which could indicate how things might
14:44
S2: go closer to the election. Remember that time where he
14:47
S2: got all upset with, um, one of the supermarkets because
14:50
S2: they weren't stocking the right products for Australia Day?
14:53
S8: I think it's an outrage, to be honest. And I
14:57
S8: think people should boycott Woolworths. I would advise very strongly
15:01
S8: to take your business elsewhere to go to IGA or
15:04
S8: Kohl's or Aldi. And I think until we get common
15:07
S8: sense out of a company like Woolworths, I don't think
15:11
S8: they should be supported by the public.
15:14
S2: It seemed to be beneath somebody who wanted to be
15:16
S2: prime minister. He said he wouldn't stand in front of
15:19
S2: the indigenous flag. I think a lot of people like
15:21
S2: that idea. They just want one flag. But really, if
15:25
S2: he's prime Minister, won't there be moments where he will
15:27
S2: be standing in front of an indigenous flag? Won't he
15:30
S2: be a prime minister for Indigenous Australians as well as
15:32
S2: other Australians? It seemed to me to be sort of
15:36
S2: a hard culture war kind of position to take, when
15:39
S2: he should be fairly confident. He's got conservative voters at
15:42
S2: this point, and he still struggles to kind of reach
15:46
S2: out to the other voters that he would need if
15:49
S2: he is to get the support to be prime minister.
15:52
S2: Peter Dutton's always been able to cut through, and sometimes
15:55
S2: it's with statements that are quite divisive, but they do
15:59
S2: get noticed. And I think he is getting attention for
16:03
S2: that and it is paying off for him, even though
16:05
S2: there's not much of a hard economic platform there behind
16:10
S2: what they're talking about, you know? Yes, they've got a
16:13
S2: nuclear policy that you might call an energy plan, a
16:16
S2: climate plan, even. But on the economic front, it's mostly
16:21
S2: a policy vacuum.
16:22
S1: Yeah, I would add to that a sort of dialectic,
16:25
S1: I suppose, between weakness and strength. So, you know, the
16:27
S1: opposition tried to paint Anthony Albanese as weak. Labor tried
16:32
S1: to paint Peter Dutton as divisive. Peter Dutton tried to
16:35
S1: paint himself as strong. And I suppose more generally, there's
16:39
S1: the question that voters will have to face coming up
16:42
S1: to the next election. We live in a time of
16:44
S1: great global instability. You know, the economy is very, very soft.
16:49
S1: And who is the best person and what's the best
16:52
S1: leadership style to to lead us through that instability, particularly
16:56
S1: with Donald Trump assuming office in the white House in January.
17:00
S2: And I remember when the weak line was being thrown
17:05
S2: at Anthony Albanese in Question Time. He would often respond
17:10
S2: by painting Dutton as angry. Oh, he's angry again. He's
17:14
S2: always angry. And so the government thought that that that
17:17
S2: was the most telling line to use against Peter Dutton.
17:21
S2: And maybe it is because we find in our polling
17:26
S2: that voters, they do have a view of Anthony Albanese
17:31
S2: as a nice guy in a way. But is that
17:34
S2: what they will vote for when they want a prime minister?
17:36
S2: Maybe that isn't going to be enough to to get
17:41
S2: ahead of Peter Dutton in this race because people want
17:46
S2: a strong leader generally. Mhm. Mhm.
17:48
S1: Yeah. You don't necessarily need your Prime Minister to be
17:50
S1: a nice guy. Thank you so much for your contribution
17:53
S1: this year. This is our last podcast of the year.
17:55
S1: It's been really fun. We've had a lot of fun.
17:58
S1: I hope listeners have enjoyed it as well. And next
18:00
S1: year we're going to be back bigger and better than
18:02
S1: ever for the election year. David merry Christmas.
18:05
S2: Thank you. Jackie, I think the world is going to
18:07
S2: be back bigger and badder next year, unfortunately. We'll try
18:11
S2: and do our best to make sense of it.
18:12
S1: That's right. We'll eat a lot of ham and eat
18:15
S1: a lot of Christmas cake and come back enlivened in
18:18
S1: the New Year.
18:19
S2: Thank you Jackie, and thanks to everybody who makes the
18:21
S2: podcast happen.
18:24
S1: Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Kai Wong.
18:28
S1: Our executive producer is Tammy Mills and our head of
18:31
S1: audio is Tom McKendrick. Inside politics is a production of
18:35
S1: The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy
18:38
S1: our show and you want more of our journalism, subscribe
18:41
S1: to our newspapers today. It is the best way to
18:43
S1: support what we do. Search the age or Smh.com.au forward slash. Subscribe.
18:51
S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley, this is inside politics. Thank you for listening.