Latest / Inside Politics / Is there beef between Chalmers and Albanese? And, we talk Palestine, and productivity mixed-messages

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Is there beef between Chalmers and Albanese? And, we talk Palestine, and productivity mixed-messages · 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, August 15th.
0:09
S1: This week, the Albanese government announced it would recognise Palestine
0:13
S1: as a state. A huge foreign policy shift that was
0:16
S1: greeted with approval by many and criticism by many others. Plus,
0:21
S1: we got decidedly mixed messages about next week's Productivity Roundtable.
0:27
S1: Joining me to discuss, we have our chief political correspondent,
0:29
S1: Paul Sacher. Welcome, Paul.
0:31
S2: Hi, jacki.
0:37
S1: So what exactly happened inside the Albanese cabinet in the
0:40
S1: lead up to this decision to recognise Palestinian statehood? Because
0:44
S1: just a few weeks ago, like even two weeks ago,
0:47
S1: I think the PM was saying that the recognition was
0:50
S1: not imminent. And yet, here we are. Has he got
0:53
S1: a different definition of imminence to us?
0:56
S2: Politicians always have tricky language around what decisions have been
1:01
S2: made yet. What is not imminent? What they have plans
1:05
S2: to do or don't have plans to do? But I
1:07
S2: think this was this was a case that was less
1:09
S2: about him using tricky language and more about just a
1:13
S2: rapidly shifting global dynamic on this issue. You said a
1:17
S2: couple of weeks or a few weeks there in your intro.
1:19
S2: I think it was actually 11 days between the Prime
1:22
S2: Minister going on insiders on a Sunday and his call
1:27
S2: with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, where he effectively
1:31
S2: in a it was last Thursday night at about 7:00,
1:33
S2: they had about approximately 40 minute call, which was quite long.
1:37
S2: And Albanese flagged his intent to the Israeli prime minister
1:41
S2: and said they were moving towards recognition sooner rather than later.
1:45
S2: They ended up making that call publicly on the Monday
1:48
S2: after the Thursday. So two weeks and one day after
1:52
S2: his insiders appearance. And on that insiders appearance, which was
1:55
S2: the same day as the French president, Emmanuel Macron announced
1:59
S2: that he would try and lead the Western world into
2:02
S2: this pro-Palestinian push. Our Prime Minister said that there were
2:07
S2: very strict red lines that he had around recognition. Any
2:10
S2: role for Hamas would not be contemplated, and he would
2:13
S2: not do anything that was symbolic or token or what
2:17
S2: would be perceived as a gesture. But that all moved
2:18
S2: very quickly.
2:19
S1: Yeah, okay. I mean, some of his critics are saying, oh,
2:22
S1: it's all for reasons of domestic politics, which seems like
2:25
S1: a strange criticism to me because of course, the Prime
2:27
S1: Minister is going to be interested in domestic politics. That's
2:30
S1: kind of his job. But was that the primary, in
2:33
S1: your understanding? Was that the primary motivator, or was it
2:36
S1: international forces like your Emmanuel Macron's who are basically saying,
2:40
S1: come and join this coalition and we'll try to end
2:42
S1: this conflict this way?
2:44
S2: I think the international politics was what triggered the very
2:50
S2: hasty move into a public recognition of a Palestinian state.
2:55
S2: Over the last two weeks, you had France, you had Canada,
2:58
S2: you had the UK all nearly back to back. They
3:01
S2: are the countries with whom we've moved in lockstep on
3:04
S2: our positioning on Palestine. And the view inside the government
3:08
S2: is that we're a middle power. We have very little
3:11
S2: role in Middle East politics, but we're also a respected voice.
3:14
S2: We're a respected voice in the Israeli political community. We're
3:17
S2: a respected voice in South East Asia, where there are
3:20
S2: some very large Muslim countries that have Muslim majority countries
3:24
S2: that have close, very strong feelings about the Palestinian question.
3:28
S2: And we're a respected voice in in international affairs. We
3:32
S2: often punch above our weight in diplomatic forums fora. So
3:36
S2: the cover that was provided by those nations moving quickly
3:39
S2: on recognition, meant that Albanese and his cabinet were able
3:44
S2: to fulfill the commitment that they had made in previous
3:49
S2: policy platforms of the Labor Party. And those commitments to
3:52
S2: recognise the Palestinian state at some point in the future
3:56
S2: were driven by domestic politics and in internal labour feeling
4:00
S2: on the Palestinian question. There's been for about a decade
4:04
S2: now huge internal grassroots push within labor for them to
4:07
S2: take a stronger pro-Palestinian stance. And this movement from our
4:10
S2: like minded nations allowed that to come to life.
4:15
S1: I suppose the criticism is that it's or the sort
4:17
S1: of strange thing is that it's not coming in response
4:20
S1: to any sort of moves in a positive direction from
4:22
S1: Palestinian authorities or towards any sort of outbreak of democracy
4:27
S1: or democratic institutions within Gaza and the West Bank. But
4:31
S1: it's more coming from the need seen by countries like Australia,
4:37
S1: to put international pressure on Israel to end the conflict
4:41
S1: or make moves towards ending the conflict.
4:43
S2: I think that's spot on. Its recognition in previous eras
4:48
S2: of thinking has not really been conceived of as a
4:50
S2: diplomatic tool to create change. Yeah, but because of Israel's
4:55
S2: increasingly unjustifiable war effort that has isolated it so dramatically.
5:02
S2: The balance is tipped away from them from the Israeli
5:04
S2: view and Western nations, which have previously been allied to
5:07
S2: Israel and do still have friendly relations, are so exasperated
5:11
S2: by what's going on that they have decided to use
5:15
S2: recognition as a tool to try and create change and,
5:18
S2: and and potentially dissuade Israel from continuing, but also to
5:22
S2: persuade some of the Arab nations and the US to
5:25
S2: get involved and bring an end to this war.
5:27
S1: What was the sort of political reaction to the decision
5:29
S1: at home?
5:30
S2: It was all very stock standard.
5:32
S3: For this government to take this action offends every fair thinking,
5:37
S3: decent Australian.
5:38
S2: The opposition jumped back into its fervently pro-Israel position that
5:44
S2: characterised a lot of the politics under Peter Dutton.
5:47
S3: To recognise unilaterally, a Palestinian state does one thing for
5:51
S3: the terrorists it rewards them and it emboldens them.
5:56
S2: The sections of the media, particularly News Corp, uh, quickly
6:00
S2: branded Anthony Albanese, a friend of Hamas, for making this decision.
6:04
S2: The tabloids in each of the cities and the Courier Mail,
6:07
S2: The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun and the Adi, I
6:09
S2: think all had very similar looking splashes on whichever day
6:13
S2: the next day was the Tuesday. All of them mentioning
6:16
S2: Hamas and how this was a win for them, which
6:19
S2: is obviously contested. I think what was telling also was
6:23
S2: to your question, Jackie, about whether this was driven by
6:26
S2: domestic politics. Labour backbenchers absolutely pumped this news out on
6:31
S2: their social media feeds. On the Monday and Tuesday, you
6:34
S2: could see how much it was a pressure release valve
6:36
S2: for a lot of Labour MPs, particularly those on the left,
6:40
S2: who had spent months and months getting absolutely hammered by activists,
6:45
S2: but also increasingly non-activists who are fed up with what
6:48
S2: they're seeing on their TV screens and who believe that
6:50
S2: Labour hasn't quite done enough. So it was a pressure
6:52
S2: release valve for the Labour Party. It was met with
6:56
S2: a shrug of the shoulders from the hard left pro-Palestinian
6:59
S2: movement who said this This will do nothing on the
7:01
S2: ground and who want to see more. What they say
7:04
S2: is practical sanctions. The government says that it has no
7:07
S2: real power to sanction Israel anyway. And they would also
7:09
S2: be symbolic. So pretty expected reactions from across the political spectrum.
7:14
S1: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting you say that about the backbenchers. And,
7:18
S1: you know, all these MPs are particularly, as you say,
7:20
S1: Labour MPs getting a lot of mail on this subject.
7:23
S1: And Albanese, you know, he's in an electorate that's very
7:27
S1: heavily sort of you know, the Greens are his main
7:30
S1: opposition in Grayndler in Sydney's inner west. I mean, it's
7:33
S1: a huge issue within that electorate. So he'd be filling
7:36
S1: it at home as well.
7:37
S2: Totally. And he's had to, uh, he's had to deal
7:40
S2: with protests outside his electorate office for long periods that
7:42
S2: had blocked his staff being able to go to work.
7:44
S2: And just on that question of MPs receiving mail for
7:48
S2: a long time, there's been this narrative that this is
7:50
S2: not within the top set of issues in the Australian electorate,
7:54
S2: and I think that a lot of weight can probably
7:56
S2: be put in that argument. But I heard an interesting
7:57
S2: view from Jerome Laxale, who's the member for Bennelong in
8:01
S2: Sydney's inner inner north. Many of our listeners would know
8:04
S2: that electorate well. And he said that this has been
8:07
S2: the number one, two and three issue in his inbox
8:10
S2: for a long period of time. And I said to him,
8:12
S2: does that include the inflation crisis and all other top
8:16
S2: of mind issues? And he said this is the biggest one.
8:18
S2: It's not just activists. It's not just Change.org bots. It's
8:23
S2: people in his electorate concerned.
8:25
S1: Yeah, I think once you get images of starving children
8:28
S1: on the television, people do tend to get upset. Coming
8:37
S1: back home to some of these pertinent to the domestic
8:39
S1: economy issues. Next week. Are you excited? Are you getting pumped?
8:44
S1: Have you got your outfits planned for Canberra? Coachella?
8:47
S2: Have you booked your room because the Airbnbs are chockers,
8:51
S2: I hear.
8:52
S1: Of course we're talking about the Productivity Summit or Roundtable,
8:55
S1: if you will, which is happening next week, and we're
8:58
S1: getting a lot of mixed messages about it. In fact,
9:01
S1: if you're trying to like me, you're trying to fashion
9:04
S1: a coherent narrative in the sort of lead up to
9:06
S1: this summit. It's almost impossible because on the one hand,
9:10
S1: you know, Albanese is going, yes, we're open to big reform.
9:12
S1: We want to be a big reforming government, just kind
9:14
S1: of maybe not now. And they're pouring cold water on
9:17
S1: almost every idea that's come up in in the lead up.
9:21
S1: What what is the latest news? Can you cut through
9:23
S1: this all to tell us what's really going on?
9:26
S2: I do not blame you for not being able to
9:28
S2: form a coherent understanding of where this is all going.
9:31
S2: And the blame for that lies at the feet of
9:34
S2: the Prime Minister and the treasurer, who haven't really been
9:37
S2: able to set a coherent message up in terms of
9:40
S2: what they are trying to solve and what the solutions
9:44
S2: are and what the trade offs are inherent in those solutions.
9:49
S2: They talk a lot about the productivity challenge. Famously, we've
9:52
S2: talked about this in this podcast many times. That's a
9:54
S2: word that not many people understand. Yeah. So if you're
9:57
S2: trying to set up a get public sentiment to the
10:00
S2: place where they understand that there is a big problem
10:02
S2: that needs to be solved, that affects their hip pocket,
10:05
S2: and that doing some of these big changes that might
10:07
S2: have losers on the tax side, or the workplace relations side,
10:10
S2: or anything else to allow those people to understand that
10:13
S2: they are still worth pursuing because they make everyone better off. Overall,
10:17
S2: then critics have a fair argument. I think at this point,
10:20
S2: to say that the government hasn't been doing that kind
10:23
S2: of shaping of public opinion.
10:25
S1: Yeah, well, maybe they're hoping that the Productivity Roundtable itself
10:30
S1: will do some of that work on productivity. And as
10:34
S1: our friend of the podcast, Shane Wright, is fond of
10:37
S1: telling us, productivity is not about working harder, it's about
10:40
S1: working smarter. But we did get some productivity data this
10:44
S1: week that were sort of hidden amid the good news
10:46
S1: of the RBA cutting rates. What was that productivity number?
10:51
S2: This is one of those moments where you think to yourself,
10:54
S2: why on earth would you be a politician? Jim Chalmers
10:57
S2: is just I was just thinking about what his office
10:59
S2: would have been feeling at this moment. So he's just
11:02
S2: gone through an inflation crisis. Rates are finally coming down.
11:05
S2: He can claim a lot of credit for that and does.
11:08
S2: It's within the target rate band. And we're probably going
11:10
S2: to see some more interest rate cuts.
11:12
S4: These interest rate cuts and the progress that we've made
11:15
S4: in our economy, they put us in good stead for
11:18
S4: the global uncertainty that surrounds us and for the big
11:22
S4: economic challenges which confront us as well, inflation.
11:26
S2: And then Michelle Bullock, the reserve Bank governor, releases a
11:28
S2: statement saying rates are down. Good news. Jim Chalmers hope
11:32
S2: she does a press conference saying there'll be future rate cuts.
11:34
S2: People feel happy in their homes and pleased towards the
11:37
S2: government and then bang the RBA at that moment, at
11:40
S2: that same afternoon, decide to release their updated, uh, assumptions
11:46
S2: on what will happen to productivity over the next few years.
11:50
S5: That for the purposes of our forecast period, we think
11:53
S5: that the productivity assumption needs to be a bit lower. Interestingly, um,
11:59
S5: the reason one of the reasons we've come to this
12:01
S5: position is that our forecasts were such that we were
12:06
S5: hitting our employment and our inflation forecasts, but we were
12:10
S5: overestimating our GDP and our consumption forecasts. So there was
12:14
S5: a tension in the forecast. Why were we hitting our
12:17
S5: targets when we weren't hitting?
12:19
S2: And and they use those assumptions to do their forecasting
12:22
S2: around growth and rates and the trajectory for the economy,
12:26
S2: because all of those help flow into their decision making
12:29
S2: around monetary policy. And this productivity assumption drops from 1%
12:35
S2: over the next few years to 0.7 of a percent,
12:38
S2: which has actually been closer to the average rate of
12:41
S2: productivity over over the last 5 or 10 years. And
12:44
S2: those numbers seem very close to the lay observer. But
12:48
S2: if you had Shane write on here, and I'm sure
12:50
S2: he's raring to go ahead of next week's Productivity Roundtable,
12:54
S2: he'll tell you that, uh, that change in productivity in
12:58
S2: a yearly basis over a long period of time has
13:00
S2: a significant effect on economic growth, on living standards, on
13:04
S2: how much people's wages will rise, because it effectively means
13:07
S2: that we're not using our resources and our inputs as
13:10
S2: effectively as possible, and people will be, on average, poorer
13:13
S2: compared to the 1%. So Jim Chalmers sits there thinking
13:16
S2: it's meant to be a fantastic day for me. And
13:19
S2: then the next day's headlines, page one, I think of
13:21
S2: the Australian Financial Review and our paper were all leading
13:25
S2: off on the double edged nature of the news being
13:28
S2: rate cut, yes, but worse productivity and pretty bad timing
13:31
S2: ahead of next week's roundtable.
13:32
S1: You can always trust an econocrats to kind of come
13:35
S1: in and rain on everybody's parade.
13:38
S2: They're just so negative.
13:39
S1: Yeah, I know. They're so, so negative. It looks now
13:43
S1: like housing and housing approvals are going to be a
13:46
S1: focus of the Productivity Summit. And you wrote about that
13:49
S1: this week. Tell us what's going on with housing approvals
13:51
S1: and how that can lift productivity.
13:54
S2: Well the government's done a lot of tamping down of
13:56
S2: expectation on areas such as tax reform items like the
14:02
S2: capital gains tax, negative gearing, which we've heard so much
14:05
S2: about over the years, about how they are good reforms that, yes,
14:09
S2: create losers but are still worthwhile. The government is doing
14:12
S2: a lot of backgrounding in the last week or so
14:15
S2: to say that those big items around tax and other
14:18
S2: contentious issues will not be the ones that are immediately
14:21
S2: solved at next week's roundtable. There might be set up
14:24
S2: for more work after the roundtable, after a debate has
14:26
S2: started and then pursued in future budgets. But next week,
14:30
S2: the agenda has been narrowed to red tape and excessive regulation,
14:36
S2: and how to get the economy and key areas of
14:40
S2: supply moving more quickly. There is broad consensus across mining
14:45
S2: firms who want to build mines more quickly. Among green
14:48
S2: energy firms, who want to get solar and wind farms
14:50
S2: up more quickly than they currently are, and they are
14:52
S2: very slow. These approval processes and construction firms who want
14:56
S2: to build housing. There's broad consensus as well as inside
14:59
S2: the cabinet that the environmental laws are clogging up the
15:02
S2: building of all of these types of items, and causing
15:07
S2: us to move less quickly than we can on the
15:09
S2: green energy transition, and to build far fewer houses than
15:12
S2: we need to. So there's a big effort behind the
15:14
S2: scenes to get to fix some of that.
15:15
S1: Yeah. And I feel like, you know, the government's got
15:17
S1: a lot of skin in the game. On the housing
15:19
S1: approval issue, particularly because they've promised to build so much housing.
15:23
S1: And it is actually one thing where the opposition can
15:26
S1: very credibly say, you said that you would build, you know,
15:29
S1: 10,000 homes and actually only one has been built. So
15:32
S1: it's something where the report card is very easily kind
15:35
S1: of tallied up. There's also road user charges, which is
15:39
S1: maybe not a sexy subject, but quite an interesting one
15:41
S1: because it sort of points to the difference, you know,
15:44
S1: a transition, an economic transition and an environmental transition away
15:49
S1: from petrol cars. Yeah, I'm sure there's a different word
15:53
S1: for them. But cars that use petrol and EVs.
15:56
S2: So diesel combustion engines, I think they call them.
15:59
S1: That's the one that I'm talking about. To me, cars
16:01
S1: are just red cars, blue cars, white cars, etc..
16:04
S2: What car do you have?
16:04
S1: Um, I've got a dark blue, a midnight blue, um,
16:09
S1: and it uses petrol. So more and more people are
16:12
S1: taking up EVs. You know, that's obviously an industry that
16:15
S1: will help us move towards the energy transition that we
16:19
S1: need to make. But that means that fuel excise goes
16:21
S1: down because fuel excise is essentially a tax on petrol.
16:24
S1: The fewer people using petrol, the less money the government
16:27
S1: collects in fuel excise. So what are they going to
16:30
S1: do to make up that revenue?
16:32
S2: Well, they're moving towards a road user charge that will
16:36
S2: bring in EV drivers. Our proportion of EVs is is
16:40
S2: still far fewer than uh, some countries like China, which
16:43
S2: has moved much more quickly in that direction. There seems
16:46
S2: to be in Australia an attachment to using petrol cars,
16:50
S2: but we are moving more quickly. In the last couple
16:52
S2: of years, a bigger and bigger proportion of cars being
16:55
S2: sold are EVs. And Jim Chalmers has been flagging this
16:58
S2: for quite a while, for years really into well into
17:01
S2: the first term of his government. He was flagging work
17:04
S2: with the states to fix the fuel excise issue. In
17:08
S2: a similar vein, fuel excise. The tobacco excise is also
17:11
S2: facing huge black holes, and these are really critical because
17:15
S2: of the booming black market for tobacco. So between fuel,
17:19
S2: fuel and tobacco that they're actually key federal revenue sources.
17:23
S2: And over time, if those black holes continue to enlarge,
17:26
S2: and that's a really bad thing for our budget. So
17:29
S2: there will be something on the on the road user
17:31
S2: charge at some point over the next few months, it
17:34
S2: looks like, and there'll be trials on which cars will
17:37
S2: be which EVs will be dragged into it and at
17:39
S2: what point. But we're kind of yet to see the
17:41
S2: detail on that.
17:42
S1: Yeah. Okay. And on a more popular sort of note,
17:45
S1: there has been the prospect raised of a four day week.
17:47
S1: So the ACTU has made headlines about this. Business groups
17:51
S1: are very up in arms about it. It seems to
17:53
S1: me it's putting the cart a little bit before the horse,
17:56
S1: because don't you need productivity gains before you can drop
17:58
S1: back to four days a week? But I don't want to,
18:00
S1: you know, I don't want to pour cold water on this.
18:03
S1: What has the government said about the prospect of a
18:05
S1: four day working week? Good things.
18:07
S2: They're pretty cold on it.
18:08
S1: Can I take tomorrow off?
18:10
S2: Well, when they start printing just four newspapers in a week,
18:13
S2: maybe we can. We can. We can have a four
18:15
S2: day week, too.
18:16
S1: Let's not put the idea in their head.
18:18
S2: Um, the four day workweek won't get much traction with
18:21
S2: orthodox economists, because one of the key benefits of productivity
18:27
S2: over time, when you can get your society working more efficiently.
18:32
S2: One of the byproducts of productivity is not just increased wages,
18:36
S2: it's actually increased leisure time. Yeah. And if you look
18:39
S2: over time, productivity grows and so does the amount of
18:42
S2: time you get to spend at home with your family,
18:44
S2: or going to the footy or writing books or doing
18:46
S2: whatever else. So economists will laugh that that idea out
18:48
S2: the door.
18:49
S1: Okay. Um, well, I don't know. Maybe we can we
18:52
S1: can look to the robots to, um, make up that
18:54
S1: fifth day for us. I the other thing that's again,
18:58
S1: speaking of populist appeal, there have been some reports of
19:00
S1: tension between Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers leading up to
19:04
S1: this summit. I don't know if this is just the
19:06
S1: work of hopeful journalists, you know, hoping for some internal
19:09
S1: conflict that they can report on. Far be it from
19:12
S1: me to, you know, suspect journalists of wanting conflict that
19:16
S1: they can then make headlines out of. But, I mean,
19:19
S1: it does seem like Chalmers is a little bit more
19:21
S1: open to reform, particularly tax reform. Albanese seems to have
19:25
S1: a much more cautious and risk averse approach. And they're
19:28
S1: coming from different directions. Right. Like they've got slightly different
19:31
S1: objectives and they've got different personal interests and maybe even
19:34
S1: different political interests. So what's your take on on the
19:37
S1: Albanese v Chalmers beef?
19:40
S2: Yeah. Well the starting point I don't think it's a beef.
19:42
S2: So I'm going to disappoint listeners there. The starting point
19:45
S2: is what you've just said that they they do have
19:47
S2: different roles in the government.
19:49
S1: Can we call it a stoush. A fight?
19:52
S2: I think it's I think it's even more gray than that.
19:54
S2: There's something in the in the differences of, um, there's
19:57
S2: there's something there in the difference of approach And the
20:01
S2: different intents they have and potentially how open they are
20:04
S2: to to moving more quickly. But they have a pretty
20:06
S2: close working relationship. Uh, there's not been any overt public
20:12
S2: feud in between them, which is unlike Howard and Costello.
20:15
S2: And unlike Hawke and Keating, their feuds were much more clear.
20:19
S2: There's more nuance in this one, but I'm not suggesting
20:21
S2: there's no feud in at all. Fundamentally, Chalmers is hyper
20:26
S2: ambitious and eventually wants to become the Prime Minister. He
20:29
S2: can't say that at this point. The Prime Minister has
20:32
S2: just had a thumping election win, so he's pretty comfortable
20:35
S2: in his own shoes and doesn't need to worry as
20:37
S2: much about the rivals underneath him. Uh, Chalmers is interested
20:42
S2: in building his legacy as treasurer by doing some big
20:45
S2: reform that marks him out as the replacement to the
20:49
S2: Prime Minister. Whenever that comes, comes about, it might be
20:52
S2: much longer than people predicted before the last election, because
20:55
S2: why would he go anywhere given the resounding win he
20:57
S2: just had? Uh, and Albanese has made a core part
21:02
S2: of his leadership. This sense of steadiness, this sense of, uh,
21:07
S2: putting an absolute premium on retaining the trust of the
21:10
S2: electorate by not doing more than he said. The lessons
21:13
S2: of the Rudd-gillard era are like, um, branded into his skin.
21:18
S2: He was a key part of it, and he sees
21:20
S2: he puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that
21:24
S2: when he amended the stage three income tax cuts last election,
21:28
S2: which was a huge call for the government to make
21:30
S2: and was actually led by Chalmers internally, he stood up
21:33
S2: at the Press club, admitted that he was changing course,
21:36
S2: and he tried to keep as much trust with the
21:38
S2: electorate as possible. So the idea that he would use
21:41
S2: a round table, as we're having next week, to radically
21:44
S2: alter the trajectory of the government and come up with
21:47
S2: a whole bunch of new tax ideas, would run counter
21:50
S2: to everything that Albanese has said that he's for. But
21:55
S2: where the evidence of the feud has emerged is that
21:59
S2: the expectations for this round roundtable and all of the
22:02
S2: big ideas that were being put up by experts and
22:04
S2: the opposition and independents and whoever else. And interest groups
22:07
S2: got a bit too big on the government, and they
22:09
S2: were facing daily questions about the GST, about negative gearing,
22:13
S2: all these tough issues that they don't really intend to prosecute.
22:16
S2: And at each point when the expectations have been tamped
22:19
S2: down or an idea has been ruled out, such as
22:23
S2: the GST, the first mover to tamp down or to
22:27
S2: rule out has been the Prime minister. Yeah. And for
22:30
S2: it's looked as if at least in public, this may
22:32
S2: not be quite right. It might just be a more
22:35
S2: blunt rhetorical style from the Prime Minister, but it's looked
22:38
S2: like the Chalmers has followed him in step the next
22:41
S2: day by making the same ruling out points and doing
22:45
S2: the same expectations management. So that has created at least
22:48
S2: the kind of, uh, the public appearance of being slightly
22:52
S2: at odds. But I think it's a bit more complex
22:53
S2: than that.
22:54
S1: Mhm. Okay. Maybe there's some complex mind games going on
22:57
S1: there that we can delve into in a future podcast. The.
23:00
S1: The Prime Minister was at pains to say this week that,
23:02
S1: you know, he talks to the treasurer almost every day.
23:05
S1: Just quickly, I want to check in on the opposition
23:07
S1: because we haven't heard so much from them. Yeah. So
23:10
S1: what's your I mean, Susan Lee has been a little
23:14
S1: a little bit out and about this week sort of
23:15
S1: talking about the round table and saying that, you know,
23:18
S1: basically it's a foregone conclusion and, you know, it's a charade. Um,
23:23
S1: do you think she's cutting through? How do you think
23:24
S1: she's going?
23:26
S2: It's funny timing. I just had a call from one
23:29
S2: of her senior colleagues who was just calling to complain
23:32
S2: about what he believed to be the easy run we
23:35
S2: were giving Jim Chalmers. But the other point he made
23:37
S2: was that he doesn't even understand why we're quoting the
23:40
S2: opposition in news stories.
23:42
S1: He doesn't understand why we're quoting.
23:44
S2: Obviously he wants to be quoted, but he said we're
23:46
S2: just so irrelevant to the show at the moment. I
23:48
S2: don't even understand why you're asking us for comment. So
23:51
S2: that's a bit of an insight into how they're thinking.
23:53
S1: Oh, dear. Okay. All right. Well, I think I think
23:55
S1: we can end there pretty much because I think that that, um,
23:58
S1: is quite a powerful statement in and of itself. But no,
24:01
S1: just quickly. What do you think?
24:03
S2: Yeah, well, I think Sussan Ley has done well to
24:07
S2: not make any mistakes to this point. Uh.
24:09
S1: She that's not a, that's not, that's damning with faint praise.
24:12
S2: She, she hasn't she hasn't lost any skin by making
24:15
S2: a kind of overreach, which I think other opposition leaders
24:19
S2: in such a dire, um, electoral position would have, uh,
24:23
S2: she's been careful not to look as if she's brawling
24:26
S2: all the time. I think she's read the public mood
24:28
S2: pretty well. She's. And and her team's key focus at
24:32
S2: the moment. There's a view in the opposition that in
24:34
S2: the first six months after that election drubbing, there's not
24:37
S2: really many votes to be won. Very little attention has
24:39
S2: been put on her. They're trying to get their internal
24:41
S2: processes around policy making, around how they approach media, around
24:45
S2: parliamentary tactics. They're trying to clear the decks from the
24:48
S2: Dutton era and become a coherent force that can set
24:52
S2: them up for more success later in the term. And
24:55
S2: the word is that internally, she's doing quite a solid
24:57
S2: job at all of that. Okay. Um, so they're not
25:00
S2: a huge feature in public debate. They were probably never
25:02
S2: going to be. There's very little she can do to
25:04
S2: make the opposition super relevant right now, but I think
25:07
S2: she's at least meeting minimum standards.
25:09
S1: Maybe they should just all take four day weeks for
25:11
S1: a while until things hot up in the electoral cycle. Paul,
25:14
S1: thank you as ever and we will see you next week.
25:17
S2: Thank you. Talk to you soon.
25:21
S1: Today's episode was produced by Kea Wong with technical assistance
25:24
S1: from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
25:28
S1: Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to
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S1: Age or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you for listening.