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What actually happens on the campaign bus · Inside Politics

0:00
S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
0:03
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, April 4th.
0:10
S1: Week one of the election campaign is done. Albanese has
0:14
S1: been hammering his Medicare message. Dutton has sought to broaden
0:18
S1: his image but is still playing to type, telling Sky
0:20
S1: news that he is ready to fight Donald Trump on
0:23
S1: Australia's behalf if necessary. So who won the week and
0:27
S1: what is it like to be on the campaign trail
0:29
S1: with the leaders? As a journalist catching mystery flights to
0:32
S1: places unknown and travelling with your colleagues on an actual bus?
0:37
S1: Joining us now to tell us all about it. We
0:39
S1: have Paul Satchell, who I believe is in Melbourne, and Matthew,
0:41
S1: not all the way from Perth, where he has just
0:44
S1: hopped off a plane. Welcome to the podcast, gentlemen.
0:47
S2: Great to be with you. Hi Jackie and Paul.
0:49
S1: Now, guys, you have been following the leaders all around
0:51
S1: our country for the first week of the campaign. Paul,
0:54
S1: you've been with the Prime Minister, and Matt, you've been
0:56
S1: with Peter Dutton. I want to start by asking both
0:58
S1: of you what the standout moment of the week has
1:01
S1: been for each leader. Paul, what has been Albo's best, worst,
1:06
S1: most interesting moment?
1:07
S2: Good question. And you're putting me on the spot. I mean,
1:09
S2: my standout moment from the week was catching up with
1:12
S2: Knotty on Tuesday night.
1:14
S3: Oh, did you guys do a high five across the
1:16
S3: airport tarmac or something?
1:17
S2: We both were in we're in Melbourne because, um, Peter
1:20
S2: Dutton and Anthony Albanese were both there on Tuesday, and
1:22
S2: we had a lovely, quite fancy dinner. Um, so that
1:25
S2: was that was my personal highlight. But on the political highlight,
1:28
S2: it's a good question on the Prime Minister. I think
1:32
S2: the moment where it became clear to me that he
1:35
S2: was in a really positive, confident frame of mind and
1:41
S2: that the electorate was shifting towards him, and you could
1:43
S2: see it in his demeanour and his rhetoric was on.
1:46
S2: I think it was the Saturday morning. His first campaign
1:49
S2: stop was to the seat of Dickson, which is Peter
1:51
S2: Dutton's seat. Labor's tried really hard to win this seat
1:53
S2: over several elections and they've got close, but he's always
1:57
S2: held on, despite the demographics not being fantastic for him.
2:01
S2: Albanese chose to go there first up, playing a little
2:03
S2: bit of mind games with with his with the opposition
2:05
S2: leader on his way to an urgent care clinic, which
2:08
S2: he's very keen to spruik. He made an impromptu trip
2:11
S2: into a gym on a Saturday morning in suburban Brisbane,
2:15
S2: which was full of kind of 30 to 40 year
2:17
S2: old women, their partners, and I'm not sure why. That
2:20
S2: was the demographic. And there and there were a lot
2:22
S2: of children and he walked in and he didn't. He
2:25
S2: wasn't kind of fearful of any blowback despite, you know,
2:28
S2: the outer suburbs of Brisbane maybe not being the best
2:30
S2: place for labor. He walked in, he kissed babies. The
2:33
S2: cameras followed him in.
2:36
S4: An hour or an hour, and.
2:38
S2: He showed no signs of nerves. And he walked out
2:43
S2: and he was saying privately to some of the journalists
2:46
S2: on the way out, and also afterwards that he felt
2:49
S2: that that was where the nation's mood was shifting, that
2:53
S2: they acknowledged that the government had had a tough few
2:56
S2: years because there was an inflation crisis, but on the whole,
2:58
S2: most people felt relatively positive towards him when he randomly
3:02
S2: interacted with them, and he was comfortable being in an
3:06
S2: unscripted scenario in a liberal held seat without being abused,
3:10
S2: which is quite a confident thing to do. And he
3:13
S2: wasn't abused. It was all positive and that was a
3:15
S2: big moment in his mind, I think.
3:17
S1: Yeah, I did see that footage and it was very
3:18
S1: I mean, I assumed that it was kind of a
3:20
S1: set up scenario as so many of these campaign events are.
3:23
S1: But you're saying it was kind of just off the cuff.
3:25
S1: It was completely unscripted.
3:26
S2: I thought it was set up as well. But I
3:29
S2: asked members of the gym who were doing, I think,
3:32
S2: like hit workouts, whether they knew he was coming and
3:35
S2: they didn't. And I said, did you enjoy him coming in?
3:38
S2: How did you feel about your baby, baby being kissed?
3:41
S2: And they were all like, yeah, it was all right.
3:42
S2: He's the Prime Minister. And they were kind of very
3:44
S2: lackadaisical about it. It was very Australian.
3:46
S5: There you go.
3:47
S1: I remember when Scott Morrison went to a bar class,
3:50
S1: which he famously labelled a barre class and, um, you know,
3:53
S1: he really lost, um, a lot of Pilates moms, including myself,
3:56
S1: at that moment. Noni, you're with Peter Dutton. What's been
4:00
S1: his kind of standout moment? Or, you know, some sort
4:03
S1: of pivotal, interesting moment for you and Dutton on the
4:06
S1: on the campaign trail?
4:06
S6: Well, I think the big cut-through moment was one that
4:10
S6: happened on the campaign trail, but the traveling pack wasn't
4:13
S6: really with him there. It was when, uh, Peter Dutton
4:15
S6: went for, uh, pretty relaxed, uh, interview with Kyle and
4:20
S6: Jackie O on Kiss-fm and spoke about this issue of
4:24
S6: where he would live as prime minister and said he
4:28
S6: and his wife would love to live in Sydney. They
4:31
S6: don't want to live in Canberra. Uh, Sydney would be
4:34
S6: the choice for them.
4:35
S7: We would live in Kirribilli. It's a you know, we love,
4:37
S7: love Sydney and love the harbour. It's a great city.
4:40
S6: And now other prime ministers have lived in Sydney. Uh,
4:43
S6: most of them have come from Sydney, unlike Peter Dutton
4:46
S6: who comes from Queensland. Uh, but I think this did
4:48
S6: cut through in a way because and labor really leapt
4:52
S6: upon it. And Paul will tell you that Anthony Albanese
4:55
S6: was very happy to talk about it, that it was
4:57
S6: a distraction from everything he was trying to talk about
5:00
S6: this week, which is about energy prices, which is about
5:03
S6: cost of living, which is about national security. This was
5:07
S6: suggesting that he was thinking about the trappings of office,
5:11
S6: rather than thinking about what ordinary Australians are going through.
5:16
S6: He did it the day before he was about to
5:19
S6: land in Melbourne, where the Liberal Party wants to pick up.
5:21
S6: A significant number of seats, are praising Sydney as not
5:25
S6: really a vote winner in Melbourne. And I think it
5:29
S6: just went to this point that perhaps Peter Dutton hasn't
5:32
S6: been as match fit as Anthony Albanese. He doesn't do
5:37
S6: that many press conferences in Canberra with the press gallery.
5:40
S6: He does a lot of friendly media, uh, with outlets
5:44
S6: that he sees as on his ideological side. And there's
5:48
S6: been a lot of questions about a lack of detail
5:51
S6: on coalition policy and a few distractions, the most noteworthy
5:56
S6: being that issue of where he would live. I don't
5:59
S6: think it's so much the substance of Sydney versus Canberra,
6:01
S6: but it's a question of what are your priorities and why.
6:04
S6: And week one, is this what you're talking about? I
6:08
S6: think that this is something we've seen a lot with
6:11
S6: many politicians is they go into a joking, softer, more
6:16
S6: relaxed interview on FM radio and they speak about something
6:20
S6: like this. That's probably fine to joke about. At the time,
6:24
S6: he wouldn't have done something like this with Sarah Ferguson
6:27
S6: on the 730 report.
6:29
S1: The headlines that come out of it are very straight.
6:32
S1: I mean, it's reported in a straight way. Um, and,
6:36
S1: you know, we remember very well how much Malcolm Turnbull
6:40
S1: suffered from being Mr. Harbourside Mansion, and he was at
6:42
S1: least staying in his own harbourside mansion, not bothering the
6:45
S1: taxpayer for it.
6:46
S2: And the other stand out moment on on Dutton side,
6:49
S2: I thought not Ian. Jackie was talking about cuts to
6:53
S2: potentially the ABC and schools if they don't stop teaching
6:57
S2: woke curriculum and they were made on also I think
6:59
S2: just to chatty Sky news interview. So he's doing these
7:03
S2: set these bits of media that are not kind of
7:06
S2: razor sharp, focused bits of media, which you might do
7:09
S2: during the term, but in a campaign they just get
7:11
S2: brought to life. I'm really not sure why he keeps
7:13
S2: doing them.
7:13
S1: It is interesting and I want to get into this
7:15
S1: because I want to talk first of all about what
7:18
S1: it's like to be on a campaign bus. What's the
7:21
S1: sort of scenario and the setup for the journalists? I've
7:23
S1: been on them not for a few years now, and
7:25
S1: I know what it looks like, but our listeners won't. So, Paul,
7:27
S1: what are you doing day to day?
7:29
S2: So the pack travelling with the Prime Minister is about
7:31
S2: 30 journalists and camera people, usually one from each outlet.
7:35
S2: Some outlets have two. Very few of them do. It's
7:38
S2: about probably half TV, half print journalists or digital. Hello,
7:41
S2: we're in the northern Canberra suburb of downer. That's the
7:45
S2: Prime Minister just walking into the home of rancour. A
7:49
S2: single mum, for example, on. I'll give you Wednesday's rundown.
7:54
S2: We got out of our Melbourne hotel at about seven.
7:58
S2: Got on a bus to the outer suburbs of Melbourne
8:01
S2: to the Liberal seat of Deakin. You're only told where
8:04
S2: you're heading at the moment you step foot on the
8:07
S2: bus or plane because the party doesn't want the opposition
8:10
S2: knowing what they're up to, and they don't want their
8:12
S2: strategy being laid out in the press either. You head
8:15
S2: to an event, you usually see the Prime Minister shake
8:17
S2: some hands and do some light hearted stuff. Prime Minister,
8:20
S2: you can see a lone protester here from the Keep
8:24
S2: the Sheep movement, which is a big campaign in WA
8:26
S2: to keep live sheep exports going internationally. It's a big
8:30
S2: industry here. Then there's a press conference, an all in
8:32
S2: press conference where most people will get a question. The
8:36
S2: Prime Minister has this way of letting everyone get a question,
8:39
S2: but you only get one. It's quite a controlled and
8:41
S2: sometimes frustrating approach. That event ended, we got on a
8:46
S2: bus to Avalon Airport at Avalon Airport. We flew to
8:50
S2: Tasmania to the Liberal seat of Braddon.
8:52
S1: At what point were you told you were going to Tasmania?
8:55
S2: We had a little bit of an idea simply because
8:57
S2: of the flight time, which we were told earlier, how
8:59
S2: long the flight would be to give journalists ability to
9:02
S2: know how long when they can fly. But you're not.
9:04
S2: You don't get confirmation until very close. If you if
9:07
S2: you ask needling questions of media advisers and you're a
9:09
S2: bit cheeky, you can find out. And if they give
9:12
S2: you a little wink or something, you might learn, but
9:14
S2: you're not officially.
9:15
S1: If you say, can you give me a hint? Is
9:17
S1: it an island to the south of Australia?
9:19
S2: Something like.
9:20
S1: That. And they'll wink. Yeah. Okay. Now I remember this.
9:23
S1: I remember it's like getting on a mystery flight kind
9:25
S1: of thing. Yeah, there's a level of excitement to it.
9:28
S1: Even if you're going to like a salmon farm in
9:30
S1: Launceston or something. Yeah. Nancy Dutton has not done this before.
9:36
S1: And as you were just saying, he's not perhaps match fit.
9:39
S1: And it is actually quite an intimidating situation to go
9:43
S1: into several different scenarios every day. Even though they've been
9:46
S1: set up by your media minders and whatever, where anything
9:49
S1: could happen, there's an element of unpredictability there, and then
9:52
S1: you're faced with a phalanx of media like 30, 30
9:55
S1: or so media, right? If you're not used to that,
9:57
S1: it is quite intimidating. Dutton doesn't ever look like he's
10:00
S1: easily intimidated. But how do you think he's going as
10:03
S1: a as a campaigner? Because this is his first election campaign.
10:05
S6: Yes. And I was very intrigued before coming on the
10:09
S6: campaign bus about what Peter Dutton would do, because we
10:13
S6: don't see a lot of him doing the retail politics
10:17
S6: that we'd associate with Tony Abbott or Scott Morrison, who
10:22
S6: were famous for, uh, being masters at, uh, images that
10:27
S6: would resonate on the nightly news. Uh, going through shopping
10:31
S6: centre walkabouts, uh, really, really doing those, those graphic things.
10:36
S6: And that traditionally has been the idea of the campaign
10:39
S6: is who wins the battle for the pictures on the
10:43
S6: 6:00 PM news, that's been the pretty clear criteria, and
10:47
S6: Peter Dutton hasn't done much of that. As opposition leader,
10:50
S6: he's been very serious, giving press conferences in a suit,
10:53
S6: usually in suburban Brisbane. So it has been interesting on
10:57
S6: this campaign. A big discussion, for example, among the travelling
11:00
S6: journalists is Peter Dutton's centrepiece policy in his budget reply
11:05
S6: speech was about cutting the fuel excise and making petrol
11:10
S6: cheaper for Australians. Now this, as far as we can tell,
11:12
S6: is an extremely popular policy with most people to cut
11:16
S6: their petrol bills. But he hasn't been anywhere near a
11:19
S6: petrol station. A bowser talking to people about petrol prices
11:24
S6: that absolutely hasn't featured at all. Instead, we've been at
11:27
S6: quite a few manufacturing facilities talking about energy prices, and
11:32
S6: they're still detailed to come on that policy. So he's
11:35
S6: been batting away questions on that. The big announcement when
11:40
S6: we arrived in Melbourne was about funding for a rail
11:44
S6: link to get from Melbourne Airport to the city.
11:49
S7: To the airport, get to work and try and relieve
11:51
S7: some of that, that absolute congestion off the off the
11:55
S7: Tullamarine as well.
11:55
S6: A popular policy many people have long spoken about why
11:59
S6: you're reliant on the bus to get in from the airport.
12:02
S6: And then we arrived in Melbourne and we landed at
12:05
S6: a winery for the announcement about the rail, and everyone
12:08
S6: was very confused. Hello from the Meinong Estate winery in
12:11
S6: the northern suburbs of Melbourne. As you can see behind me,
12:15
S6: this is a pretty picturesque location for opposition leader Peter Dutton,
12:19
S6: and it seemed this was cobbled together quite at last minute.
12:22
S6: They said you can usually see the planes going overhead,
12:25
S6: but we were nowhere near the airport, nowhere near the
12:27
S6: rail line, looking at a map, and we were nowhere
12:29
S6: near the bat. There are some questions though, here amongst
12:33
S6: the travelling media contingent, about why exactly we're here, and
12:37
S6: not perhaps in a location more connected to the rail announcement.
12:41
S6: So it was all a bit discordant. Nice pictures, but
12:45
S6: nothing to do with the story. What you really want
12:47
S6: are captivating images that go together with the policy that
12:51
S6: you're trying to sell. So on Wednesday, I think there
12:54
S6: was a much more successful visit. We went to the
12:57
S6: outer suburbs of Melbourne, went directly into the home of
13:01
S6: a family that only moved a few years ago from India,
13:05
S6: has struggled to afford a home, is struggling to pay
13:07
S6: their bills that very much. Aussie migrant battler story of
13:12
S6: who Dutton's trying to appeal to.
13:14
S7: Yeah, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good. Coming
13:18
S7: this way. Yeah it was it was packed going.
13:23
S6: We had a cup of tea with them and spoke
13:25
S6: to them about their cost of living struggles, and we
13:28
S6: did a press conference from their backyard in the outer
13:31
S6: suburbs of Melbourne that went really well. That's a classic
13:35
S6: example of the setting, chiming really well with the story
13:39
S6: that Dutton wants to project.
13:41
S1: Yeah, so much of the election campaign stuff is about
13:45
S1: getting that footage for the nightly news. And sometimes I
13:48
S1: know as a print journalist, it's not necessarily a situation
13:52
S1: that's built for you and your needs. Do you think
13:54
S1: that there's any possibility to actually scrutinize the politicians and
13:58
S1: particularly their policies in this environment?
14:01
S2: Paul, I think the press conferences are the best opportunity
14:04
S2: we have for that. The Prime Minister has this style
14:09
S2: of press conference, which he instituted, I think, during the
14:12
S2: last campaign when he had a really difficult press pack,
14:14
S2: which he viewed as feral, which caught him up on
14:16
S2: day one, because there was that question about the cash rate,
14:19
S2: which he forgot. This prompted days of really, really intense questioning.
14:23
S2: So in his term of Parliament, he's developed this strategy
14:25
S2: of picking the journalists kind of one by one, pointing
14:28
S2: at them and saying, your question now. It means there's
14:31
S2: no shouting, but it also means that unless you really,
14:34
S2: really bark your second follow up question at him, you
14:37
S2: rarely get a second question, which means he can deflect,
14:39
S2: give a non-answer, move on to the next topic, and
14:42
S2: often the next question is not on the same issue.
14:44
S2: So press conferences are our opportunity as print reporters to
14:48
S2: needle into a question of policy, put some scrutiny on
14:51
S2: an issue that they may not have got much heat
14:53
S2: on during the term, because there hasn't been as much
14:56
S2: attention as there is during an election campaign when you're
14:58
S2: trying to investigate a manifesto. So it is a great
15:02
S2: opportunity to put a really big audience and national spotlight
15:06
S2: on a leader. But their media training and their ability
15:12
S2: to control a press conference through political management means that
15:15
S2: sometimes that scrutiny only goes so far.
15:17
S1: And how do you think Abo is going with that?
15:19
S1: You mentioned before that he's quite ebullient. You know, he's
15:21
S1: quite energetic. He's been in quite a good mood. But
15:24
S1: there was an incident on Wednesday when I think he
15:26
S1: sort of shut you down or snapped at you. Did
15:29
S1: you read that as him? Just. It's almost like crowd control.
15:33
S1: Like it's almost like a psychological thing. I think sometimes
15:36
S1: if the lead is like, they want to assert their
15:38
S1: control over the press pack because they know that if
15:41
S1: they if the press pack sense any weakness, it will
15:43
S1: go in for the kill. Is that what he was
15:46
S1: doing when he shut you down on Wednesday, do you think?
15:49
S2: Yeah. To give people a bit of context on that,
15:51
S2: the press conference was wrapping up in suburban Melbourne. Penny Wong,
15:54
S2: the foreign minister, was standing by his side. She'd only
15:56
S2: had one short answer during the press conference proper. And
16:00
S2: I thought, given the tariff debate this week and the
16:06
S2: the kind of dominance of that news story in the
16:08
S2: latter half of the week inevitably would be good to
16:10
S2: get her on record and ask her some questions. The
16:12
S2: press conference was wrapping up. I said, Prime Minister, can
16:14
S2: we get the foreign minister? And he very quickly snapped
16:17
S2: back when I asked for her to come to the
16:19
S2: lectern and he said, no, she can't. No. And there
16:25
S2: were a couple of laughs. And I said, why? And
16:27
S2: he said, because it's my press conference.
16:29
S8: Because it's my press conference.
16:32
S2: A lot of people were kind of snickering and a
16:34
S2: bit taken aback by that. I'd already asked a series
16:36
S2: of questions that he was a bit grumpy at earlier on,
16:38
S2: so he might have just been not in a great
16:39
S2: mood because of that. We are without the Premier of
16:42
S2: Victoria by his side. I know you might see her
16:43
S2: later today, but you've had two premiers in the last
16:46
S2: couple of days by your side early in the day, um,
16:48
S2: Parliament sitting.
16:49
S8: It's this little thing called Parliament fall out.
16:53
S2: Should that be taken as a sign of. And he
16:54
S2: usually wraps up the press conference by saying, thanks very much.
16:57
S2: And he usually kind of delivers a powerful political argument
17:00
S2: to end. He didn't do that this time. He just
17:02
S2: walked off a bit quickly, and he made some comments
17:05
S2: to afterwards, to some others about about how that ended.
17:09
S2: And I think he might have felt slightly uncomfortable. Or
17:13
S2: maybe I'm reading a bit too much into that. But yeah,
17:15
S2: I think his authority over the press conference is a
17:18
S2: reflection of how he feels about his management of the
17:22
S2: political situation. If he's dominating a press conference, if he's
17:25
S2: controlling the the tempo and the tone. That kind of
17:31
S2: imbue him with a sense of control over the political
17:35
S2: situation at the time.
17:36
S6: From the perspective of travelling with Peter Dutton, I think
17:39
S6: to use an overused term, you really could feel the
17:42
S6: vibe shift from Peter Dutton being the opposition leader to
17:46
S6: Peter Dutton being the alternative prime minister, and you can
17:50
S6: see this in the questions he's getting every day. There's
17:52
S6: quite a bit of follow up from the travelling media about, well,
17:56
S6: what would you do if you're elected in just a
17:59
S6: few weeks? It's not. You can't just get away with
18:01
S6: now criticising the Prime minister, for example, saying he's weak,
18:05
S6: saying he's out of his depth, saying that cost of
18:08
S6: living is too high. There's a lot of questions now
18:10
S6: about what are you going to do? So there's a
18:12
S6: Chinese research vessel travelling in the waters near Australia. What
18:17
S6: would you actually do about it other than just say
18:20
S6: that the Prime Minister doesn't know what he's doing? So
18:24
S6: he's facing quite a lot of tough questions, and it
18:27
S6: is showing that we don't have a lot of policy
18:30
S6: from the opposition. There's still a lot that they're saying
18:32
S6: is to come during the campaign. But so questions are
18:35
S6: coming up about, oh, well, what is the coalition's policy
18:39
S6: on ABC funding? Are they going to keep it the same?
18:41
S6: Are they going to cut it? What about health and
18:44
S6: education funding? Some of these pretty central issues, of course,
18:48
S6: that really played out with Tony Abbott after the promises
18:51
S6: he made in his election campaign. So I think that's
18:56
S6: the noticeable thing for me is that there has been
18:58
S6: a change of tone from the media in terms of
19:02
S6: scrutinising Peter Dutton as a possible prime minister.
19:05
S1: And that's why election campaign, like the actual campaign period
19:08
S1: of five weeks, is so important, because, as you say,
19:10
S1: that vibe shift does happen and real scrutiny is, you know,
19:14
S1: it's a blast of scrutiny on both leaders and they
19:17
S1: it can make or break them and will do. I
19:20
S1: want to ask about one more thing. It's fascinating, but
19:22
S1: I've got to let you go soon. Albanese has really
19:25
S1: sharpened his attack on Peter Dutton this week, and so
19:28
S1: have other sort of frontbenchers in labor, and they're really
19:31
S1: going hard on this Trump comparison thing. They are not
19:34
S1: using the T word. They never mentioned Donald by name,
19:37
S1: but we all know what they're trying to say. They're
19:39
S1: basically saying that he is Trump lite and that he's
19:42
S1: too aggressive and that he's copying policies from Trump. I
19:46
S1: want to get both of your takes on whether or
19:48
S1: not you think that that is a strategy that is
19:51
S1: going to work for Albanese and against Dutton. Paul, I'll
19:54
S1: go to you first.
19:54
S2: Yeah. The genesis of this was about I first learnt
19:58
S2: that there was Labor Party internal research about two months ago,
20:03
S2: showing just that the as Trump started to become a
20:07
S2: bit more erratic in his administration and his language, but
20:11
S2: labor started to pick up that there was growing unease
20:13
S2: in the Australian community about what Trump meant for the
20:15
S2: world when he was elected. I think there the vibe
20:18
S2: of a mainstream voter was alright. This guy seems a
20:21
S2: bit off, but let's see what he does. But as
20:24
S2: his style became clearer and as he started to actually
20:27
S2: institute policies which offended our sense of, uh, you know,
20:30
S2: democratic norms in Europe and also, you know, our economic
20:34
S2: system at home, labor started to pick up that people
20:38
S2: were worried about his effect on their own lives and
20:41
S2: the world. And people started to equate in focus groups,
20:45
S2: Trump style, with Duttons. I don't think that's a a
20:49
S2: perfect comparison in many ways. But Labour believe that equating
20:53
S2: Trump to Dutton in a subtle way, which they started
20:56
S2: to do about a month ago. Murray, what was the
20:58
S2: first to do it on a breakfast television program? Jim
21:01
S2: Chalmers then began to make some subtle hints, and in
21:04
S2: more recent weeks, Albanese started to do it. They believe
21:07
S2: that pinning Dutton to Trump subtly over time, building the
21:11
S2: narrative that he presents the same sort of risk as
21:14
S2: a populist right wing leader across the other side of
21:16
S2: the world is a tactic that suits them nutty.
21:20
S1: Do you see any signs that this is bothering Dutton?
21:23
S1: I mean, this week he did give an interview where
21:25
S1: he said that he would fight Trump if he needed to.
21:28
S1: Not literally, but on the issue of tariffs or Australia's interests. Um,
21:32
S1: does that play against what Labor's trying to do or
21:35
S1: does it play into it?
21:36
S6: Peter Dutton has been aware of this for a long time,
21:39
S6: that he doesn't want to be seen as an Australian
21:41
S6: version of Donald Trump. I do remember that he actually
21:45
S6: went out and criticised Trump earlier than Albanese. He said
21:48
S6: he disagreed with Trump's comments and the way he was
21:52
S6: going about the Ukraine issue. He said, I think Donald
21:55
S6: Trump is wrong. And Albanese had not at that stage
21:58
S6: been brave enough to say something that direct. But coming
22:01
S6: from the conservative side of politics, uh, he can be
22:05
S6: branded as Trumpian. And that's what's interesting is to see
22:09
S6: cutting the public service an issue like that, which is
22:12
S6: long standing coalition policy and may even be popular in
22:16
S6: and of itself. Labor is branding that as a Trumpian move.
22:21
S6: That's to do with Doge, and putting the idea of
22:23
S6: Elon Musk into people's heads. And he's a very unpopular figure. Uh,
22:27
S6: similar to education policy. Dutton says he doesn't want teachers
22:31
S6: indoctrinating students. I think that's a popular idea. That's pretty
22:36
S6: traditional conservative, liberal liberal party policy. But now that's branded
22:41
S6: as a Trumpian measure because Trump wants to gut the
22:45
S6: the education department in the US. So I think labor
22:48
S6: politically is using this quite effectively to turn what could
22:51
S6: be coalition strengths into weaknesses by branding these policies as Trumpian.
22:57
S6: And Dutton is aware that he has to be seen
23:00
S6: as someone who can stand up to Trump.
23:03
S1: It's absolutely fascinating, though, because I think we've never had
23:06
S1: an American president or any kind of international administration loom
23:10
S1: over an election campaign quite like this one. It's so fascinating.
23:14
S1: I wish we could keep talking, but you both are
23:16
S1: probably quite tired. I think you've even got to go
23:18
S1: off to another event. I hope that you have some
23:21
S1: time to cross over again and have a drink together
23:24
S1: in whatever city you end up in. If it's Sydney,
23:26
S1: can you ask me along?
23:28
S2: We, of course will.
23:29
S6: Martini on me?
23:30
S1: Good. All right, fellas, we'll see you again soon.
23:32
S2: See you guys.
23:33
S1: Bye. Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Julia Katzel.
23:40
S1: Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is
23:43
S1: our head of audio. To listen to our podcasts episodes
23:46
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23:53
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S1: visiting The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald websites. Our
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S1: newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism,
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S1: visit The Age or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you
24:11
S1: for listening.