Latest / Inside Politics / Why Dorinda Cox's Greens defection was personal for the PM

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Why Dorinda Cox's Greens defection was personal for the PM · 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 6th
• 0:07
  S1: of June. The dramatic shakeout from the general election continued
• 0:13
  S1: this week, this time from the left wing of Australian politics,
• 0:16
  S1: with WA Greens Senator Dorinda Cox defecting to labor. It
• 0:21
  S1: was a coup for a triumphant prime minister. But will
• 0:25
  S1: the Prime Minister live to regret his new recruit? What
• 0:28
  S1: does Senator Cox's defection mean for the much depleted Greens party,
• 0:31
  S1: and how does it fit? With the PM's recent approval
• 0:34
  S1: of the extension of a giant fossil fuel project off
• 0:37
  S1: the West Australian coast? Here to discuss all this, we
• 0:39
  S1: have our chief political correspondent, Paul Satchell, and our chief
• 0:42
  S1: political commentator, James Massola. Welcome, gentlemen.
• 0:46
  S2: Good day. Jacki. Hello.
• 0:47
  S1: Paul. This week, the WA senator Dorinda Cox defected from
• 0:51
  S1: the Greens to Labor quite dramatically.
• 0:53
  S3: Today, I am resigning from the Australian Greens to join
• 0:55
  S3: the Labor Party. I have reached the conclusion, after deep
• 0:59
  S3: and careful reflection that my values and priorities are more
• 1:03
  S3: aligned with labor.
• 1:04
  S1: And it was a major coup for Anthony Albanese, even though,
• 1:08
  S1: as we know, he doesn't need the numbers. How did
• 1:10
  S1: this all come about?
• 1:11
  S4: It was dramatic. I was sitting in a newsroom where,
• 1:14
  S4: on a plasma screen to my right hand side, there
• 1:16
  S4: was an ABC news 24 with no volume. And I
• 1:20
  S4: think about five minutes into the press conference at about
• 1:22
  S4: 5:30 p.m. or something like that, I looked over and
• 1:25
  S4: I thought, is that Dorinda Cox standing behind the Prime Minister?
• 1:27
  S4: What the hell is going on there?
• 1:28
  S2: Yeah, the grin on the PM's face, the Cheshire cat
• 1:32
  S2: grin when he stepped out of the comcar. And then
• 1:35
  S2: she gets out the other side, it's like, oh dear me.
• 1:39
  S5: Monday it was the Prime Minister who couldn't hide his smile.
• 1:43
  S5: Fronting the media alongside Dorinda Cox to drop a bombshell
• 1:47
  S5: almost no one saw coming.
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  S4: It also stunned Greens MPs. Larissa Waters, the new Greens leader,
• 1:53
  S4: was given given 90 minutes notice about the same time
• 1:57
  S4: given to David Littleproud by Jacinta Price just a couple
• 2:00
  S4: of weeks earlier. And Albanese, as James said, had a
• 2:04
  S4: big grin on his face. He replaces that Fatima Payman
• 2:08
  S4: position on the Labor Party, likely to be the third
• 2:11
  S4: position on the WA Senate ticket. That really stung him
• 2:13
  S4: last term when Fatima Payman made that defection. He's got
• 2:17
  S4: quite a lot of hostility towards the Greens, and I
• 2:19
  S4: think he saw this as a kind of cherry on
• 2:21
  S4: top of a fantastic election result, which led to the
• 2:23
  S4: Greens leader losing his seat.
• 2:25
  S1: Yeah, he's really in Clover right now, the Prime minister. James,
• 2:28
  S1: Senator Cox does come with some baggage. You broke a
• 2:31
  S1: major story about her last year. Can you just remind
• 2:34
  S1: listeners of that story?
• 2:35
  S2: Yeah. Look, the short version, essentially, Senator Cox lost about
• 2:40
  S2: 20 staff across three years. A senator's full complement of
• 2:45
  S2: office staff is five. So she lost, you know, four
• 2:50
  S2: full complements in three years. Um, five of those staff
• 2:54
  S2: made formal complaints. Now, um, Poulos, which has been since
• 3:00
  S2: superseded by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission. They looked into
• 3:05
  S2: the complaints. It's not correct to say that they investigated
• 3:09
  S2: because they didn't have an investigative function, and they concluded
• 3:13
  S2: their inquiries and sort of didn't really make any standout recommendations.
• 3:18
  S2: That has led to claims that this hasn't been properly
• 3:21
  S2: dealt with. And that has led to really difficult questions
• 3:24
  S2: for the Prime Minister about, well, hang on a sec.
• 3:26
  S2: Did you check out these complaints before bringing Senator Cox
• 3:30
  S2: over to the Labour Party? Um, because there are questions
• 3:34
  S2: that remain on foot and indeed since since the defection
• 3:37
  S2: on Monday. Jacqui, already there are people coming out and
• 3:40
  S2: claiming that actually this needs to be dealt with. And
• 3:42
  S2: actually this this wasn't resolved as the Prime Minister is
• 3:46
  S2: now claiming and he he sort of owns this problem.
• 3:48
  S1: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there was bullying allegations but sort
• 3:51
  S1: of an inconclusive result from them basically.
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  S2: Yeah. That's right. And Senator Cox said, look, you know,
• 3:55
  S2: there's significant context missing. But I do apologize to anyone
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  S2: I've upset. This happened because I'm, you know, during the
• 4:02
  S2: voice campaign, it was highly stressful. I changed portfolios to
• 4:06
  S2: help lead that. I needed different staff. There was a
• 4:09
  S2: number of sort of factors she attributed it to.
• 4:11
  S1: Okay, what did the Greens say about the defection of
• 4:14
  S1: Dorinda Cox?
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  S4: Paul Lewis Ward has put out a statement a couple
• 4:18
  S4: of hours after the move, or maybe a little bit
• 4:21
  S4: earlier than that. She was she wasn't aggressive, but it
• 4:26
  S4: was a clear disowning of their former senator. She made
• 4:30
  S4: the point. Larissa Ward has made the point that just
• 4:33
  S4: a week ago, Dorinda Cox had been speaking negatively about
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  S4: the Labor's controversial approval of a big gas project, continuation
• 4:41
  S4: of a gas project in Perth and North West Shelf,
• 4:44
  S4: and suggested that Dorinda Cox had betrayed the values that
• 4:47
  S4: she claimed to hold just a week earlier. Sarah Hanson-Young,
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  S4: another senior Greens MP on Thursday morning in the corridors
• 4:56
  S4: of Parliament, suggested that Cox should have done the honourable
• 5:00
  S4: thing by giving the spot back to the Greens, because
• 5:03
  S4: it's their position, and Cox would never have been elected
• 5:06
  S4: as an independent and never told voters that she was
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  S4: a Labour Party person, which was probably the strongest comment
• 5:11
  S4: yet from Greens leader.
• 5:13
  S2: Except for that email. Uh. Um. Larissa Waters said to
• 5:17
  S2: party members, uh, which was a bit more forthright, and
• 5:20
  S2: said this was essentially a betrayal of Greens voters who backed, uh, well,
• 5:26
  S2: who'd voted for the Greens in 2022, not Dorinda Cox, essentially.
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  S1: I mean, a defection at any time is embarrassing, but
• 5:33
  S1: to have one directly after a general election when the
• 5:36
  S1: Greens have obviously done not very well and Labour has
• 5:39
  S1: done very well. And I mean, you know, it's particularly embarrassing.
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  S1: And Sarah Hanson-Young has probably a point, doesn't she, that
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  S1: people would have voted thinking that they were getting a
• 5:48
  S1: Greens senator. Turns out they're getting a Labour senator.
• 5:51
  S2: Yeah, absolutely. And again, like it's worth pointing out when
• 5:54
  S2: Fatima Payman moved to the crossbench, um, Anthony Albanese didn't
• 5:58
  S2: hesitate to say, you know, I think she got maybe
• 6:01
  S2: a couple of thousand below the line personal votes. Fatima
• 6:04
  S2: Payman and tens of thousands of votes for the Labor Party. Yeah.
• 6:09
  S2: Which carried her over the line. So Anthony Albanese essentially
• 6:12
  S2: said the same thing at the time. This is a
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  S2: labor seat, not a Fatima payment seat. She should do
• 6:15
  S2: the honourable thing. Funnily enough, Jack, he hasn't said that
• 6:18
  S2: about Dorinda Cox. Um, he's been quite happy to accept
• 6:21
  S2: her on the Labour benches.
• 6:22
  S4: I think he called Paiman, or I think he said
• 6:24
  S4: that she ratted on the last day of Parliament in question.
• 6:27
  S6: Time, including Fatima Payman, who was elected as a labor
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  S6: senator but ratted on the Labor Party to sit on
• 6:34
  S6: the crossbench, to sit on the crossbench.
• 6:38
  S2: And that word, of course, has the connotations going back to,
• 6:41
  S2: you know, Billy Hughes in was it 1915, 1916 when
• 6:44
  S2: he ratted? You know, that really means something in labor,
• 6:48
  S2: you know, dripping with bathos. You know.
• 6:50
  S1: It's a it's a very loaded term. Albanese's, obviously in
• 6:53
  S1: a very powerful position at the moment. He couldn't be
• 6:55
  S1: more powerful, really. He has a huge parliamentary majority. He's
• 6:57
  S1: just knocked off the leaders of both the Liberal Party
• 7:00
  S1: and the Greens, and he's looking to push his advantage.
• 7:03
  S1: But this, this rivalry with the Greens in particular is
• 7:06
  S1: really personal for him, isn't it, Paul? And it goes
• 7:08
  S1: back a long way.
• 7:10
  S4: It does go back a long way. He's fought the
• 7:11
  S4: Greens in his inner Sydney seat of Grayndler at a
• 7:15
  S4: local level, at a council level, at an activist level
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  S4: for many, many years. He has personal distaste for, particularly
• 7:23
  S4: the more left wing members of the New South Wales Greens.
• 7:27
  S4: Those members of the New South Wales Greens were in
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  S4: the grouping within the federal Parliamentary Greens that Dorinda Cox
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  S4: really butted heads with over a period of time. Dorinda
• 7:38
  S4: Cox and maybe James can explain this further. But even
• 7:40
  S4: though the defection was quite stunning when it was on
• 7:43
  S4: our television screens, the growing kind of animosity inside that
• 7:48
  S4: party and her her shift away from the centre of
• 7:52
  S4: the party had been building for months and months and
• 7:54
  S4: really years. She was pitted against Lidia Thorpe for a
• 7:57
  S4: period during the voice campaign, when Lidia Thorpe was allied
• 8:00
  S4: with the more radical Black Sovereignty Movement, and Dorinda Cox
• 8:03
  S4: was seen as the more moderate indigenous voice. Being a
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  S4: moderate in the Greens is a bit of a troublesome
• 8:09
  S4: place to be at the moment, and she frequently had
• 8:13
  S4: personal and policy disputes with more left wing members of
• 8:17
  S4: the Greens in the party room ballot. A few weeks ago,
• 8:21
  S4: now in Melbourne, when she ran for the deputy position
• 8:23
  S4: without really informing many of her colleagues beforehand, she only
• 8:26
  S4: won three of 12 votes against Mehreen Faruqi, who is
• 8:29
  S4: a member of that more left wing group, and in
• 8:31
  S4: the Greens. Dorinda Cox then wanted to run for a
• 8:33
  S4: secondary position, the deputy whip, and also lost that conclusively
• 8:37
  S4: to the Queensland senator, Senator Penny Uhlmann. Pain and Dorinda
• 8:41
  S4: Cox's view was that Uhlmann pain should never have been
• 8:43
  S4: allowed to run for that position because she already had
• 8:46
  S4: the party room chair spot and she thought you couldn't
• 8:49
  S4: run for two. And her view was that Mehreen Faruqi
• 8:51
  S4: and Larissa Waters and the other senior people in the
• 8:53
  S4: Greens had effectively conspired to stop Dorinda Cox having any
• 8:57
  S4: elected position because of their view that she is kind
• 9:00
  S4: of out of step on values, that she is under
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  S4: investigation for bullying. There has also been consternation at a
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  S4: grassroots level that Dorinda Cox is a former police officer,
• 9:08
  S4: which is a controversial position to hold in the Greens,
• 9:10
  S4: which is quite anti-authority and anti-police. There's a whole bunch
• 9:13
  S4: of different factors that led to this.
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  S2: Yeah, so the other thing that's at play here, of course, Jacques,
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  S2: is that Dorinda Cox is firm friends with Marcus Stewart,
• 9:22
  S2: a leading indigenous advocate, a former founding co-chair of the
• 9:26
  S2: First Nations assembly in Victoria and husband of Jana Stewart,
• 9:31
  S2: who's a Victorian labor senator. Those three are tight, and
• 9:34
  S2: there's nothing wrong with having political friendships across the aisle. But,
• 9:37
  S2: you know, my understanding is that Jana and Marcus were
• 9:42
  S2: talking to Dorinda about her position in the Greens for
• 9:48
  S2: some time. I think other people in the Labor Party
• 9:50
  S2: were doing that as well. We know that the PM
• 9:53
  S2: got involved at a point in the process. It wasn't,
• 9:56
  S2: you know, the day before the move happened either, like
• 9:59
  S2: this was, I think, in the planning for a while.
• 10:02
  S2: And I think if you take a step back in
• 10:04
  S2: the last Parliament, you know, we really saw a Greens
• 10:07
  S2: party that rewarded or sought to bolster voices that were
• 10:15
  S2: maybe extreme is not the word, but, you know, really
• 10:17
  S2: at the sort of bleeding edge or the leading edge
• 10:20
  S2: of debate, you know, we saw that on Palestine. We
• 10:22
  S2: saw that in the decision to deregister parts of the
• 10:26
  S2: CFMEU union.
• 10:28
  S4: Um, and the Greens linking up with the CFMEU to support.
• 10:31
  S2: Yeah. Like it was almost like they got into this
• 10:34
  S2: cycle of rewarding, you know, outrageous commentary. Um, and that's
• 10:38
  S2: not to Linda Cox, to be fair. She, she is
• 10:40
  S2: a moderate green. I think she sort of got to
• 10:42
  S2: a point where she was homeless.
• 10:44
  S1: Yeah. Okay. But even as she was sort of having
• 10:46
  S1: these problems within her party, the Greens, she was highly
• 10:50
  S1: critical of labor even as recently as last week for
• 10:53
  S1: approving the North West Shelf Gas Project extension to 2070. Now,
• 10:58
  S1: this is a huge fossil fuel project, which has been
• 11:00
  S1: controversial and is very controversial with both Aboriginal activists and environmentalists.
• 11:05
  S1: She said last week that it was a raw and
• 11:08
  S1: chilling reminder that First Nations people lack protections for their
• 11:11
  S1: cultural heritage rights. That's quite a turnaround. I just want
• 11:14
  S1: to segue slightly to this North West shelf gas project. Paul,
• 11:18
  S1: can you tell us a little bit about it, why
• 11:20
  S1: it's controversial and why Albanese has rather cynically waited till
• 11:23
  S1: right after the election to approve this extension?
• 11:27
  S4: Well, her comments on that project, I think if you
• 11:30
  S4: if you caught a left wing Labour MP at a
• 11:35
  S4: more honest moment, they would probably use similar language to
• 11:38
  S4: describe that decision. She's just more in a position where
• 11:41
  S4: she's able to do so publicly. Now, I'm not suggesting
• 11:43
  S4: that's a widespread view in the Labour Party. An energy
• 11:47
  S4: reporter colleague described it to me as a bit of
• 11:49
  S4: a vibe shift in the in the climate mitigation debate
• 11:53
  S4: where gas and the prominence of gas in the energy
• 11:57
  S4: transition and the acceptance of gas as an energy fuel
• 12:01
  S4: has grown within both, you know, moderate and right wing
• 12:05
  S4: labour circles. Also, clearly in the cabinet, the decision to
• 12:08
  S4: put Murray Watt, the Queensland former IR minister, into environment,
• 12:14
  S4: and take it out of the hands of Tanya Plibersek,
• 12:17
  S4: who has a more green view of the world than
• 12:20
  S4: Murray Watt, who's from a resources state who's seen as
• 12:23
  S4: highly pragmatic despite being from the left and who's close
• 12:25
  S4: to the prime minister.
• 12:26
  S2: Yeah, he's one of Elbow's primary, Mr. Fixit.
• 12:28
  S4: He's a fixer and and the Prime Minister wants to
• 12:31
  S4: keep WA onside. Obviously a fossil fuel state. The decision
• 12:36
  S4: to delay it till after the election was, according to
• 12:39
  S4: many in the environmental movement, as you say, jacki, a
• 12:43
  S4: cynical one designed to stave off criticism among environmentalists pre-election.
• 12:47
  S4: But it does display that the that labor is more
• 12:50
  S4: comfortable now talking about gas potentially given its new authority
• 12:54
  S4: in the parliament after the election, win. More willing to
• 12:57
  S4: take on that debate and take on the critics?
• 12:59
  S1: Yeah. And interestingly, they don't worry that they're going to
• 13:02
  S1: bleed votes to the left on this issue anymore. Albanese
• 13:06
  S1: did have some very sharp comments for the Greens following
• 13:09
  S1: this defection. He was sort of pushing his advantage. What
• 13:11
  S1: did he say about the Greens, Paul?
• 13:14
  S4: He said that Dorinda Cox's defection was proof that the
• 13:19
  S4: Greens had, quote, lost its way. He didn't expand on
• 13:23
  S4: that at length, but it's clear what he means. He
• 13:25
  S4: has been a key voice leading this narrative that the
• 13:29
  S4: Greens are, you know, not what they used to be
• 13:32
  S4: under Bob Brown. They had lost their focus on the environment.
• 13:36
  S4: They were, as James said, at the leading edge of
• 13:38
  S4: kind of radicalism on any number of topics, to focus
• 13:42
  S4: on the Gaza issue, according to some and bolshie at
• 13:46
  S4: at all points. I think there's I think there's some
• 13:48
  S4: truth in it, but I do feel like it's become
• 13:50
  S4: a bit of a self-perpetuating thing.
• 13:53
  S2: No, I think it's true. I mean, I've been here since,
• 13:56
  S2: you know, working in this building since I was 8
• 13:58
  S2: or 9. And I definitely think the greens spend a
• 14:01
  S2: lot more time focused on non-climate change issues. Now. That's fine. Um,
• 14:07
  S2: but they aren't the party they were in 2008, 2009, 2010.
• 14:11
  S4: Um, the climate climate was a bigger had more salience
• 14:14
  S4: then as the kind of Rudd government was confronting it.
• 14:16
  S4: I get your point. But I also would say Bob
• 14:19
  S4: Brown famously protested, uh, George Bush's speech on the floor
• 14:25
  S4: of Parliament. Um, the Greens were extremely outspoken on the
• 14:29
  S4: Iraq war and made it a key tenet of their
• 14:31
  S4: their politics back then. Being a pacifist anti-war party is
• 14:35
  S4: a is one of their core tenets that was determined
• 14:38
  S4: in the 70s and 80s when they formed. Yeah. And
• 14:41
  S4: they're they're not and they're not out of line with
• 14:43
  S4: other left wing movements across Europe on the Gaza issue.
• 14:47
  S2: No, no, I agree with that. But I'm saying the
• 14:49
  S2: number of issues that they now make a key focus
• 14:53
  S2: has grown significantly. And Jack, you were here at Canberra.
• 14:57
  S1: Yeah.
• 14:58
  S2: I mean, at that time.
• 14:59
  S1: It obviously hasn't worked for them if we're going to
• 15:01
  S1: go on the last election results. But I've thought it's
• 15:04
  S1: interesting over the years and particularly the last few years
• 15:07
  S1: when we've seen a huge focus on housing and cost
• 15:09
  S1: of living from that point of view, and also intergenerational inequality.
• 15:13
  S1: I actually thought they were quite salient issues for the
• 15:16
  S1: Greens to latch onto, and they really led in some cases,
• 15:19
  S1: they were kind of at the vanguard of like the
• 15:21
  S1: housing affordability issue. Right? But it hasn't paid political dividends
• 15:25
  S1: for them. It hasn't paid electoral dividends for them. So
• 15:28
  S1: I am interested in your take on this because, you know,
• 15:31
  S1: Anthony Albanese has a point. If we look at their
• 15:34
  S1: electoral results, they have lost their way. They've lost seats
• 15:36
  S1: in the lower house, they lost their leader. You know,
• 15:40
  S1: their primary vote is a little bit down. But crucially,
• 15:43
  S1: they don't have members in parliament in the same numbers
• 15:46
  S1: that they used to. So what do they need to
• 15:47
  S1: do to rebuild?
• 15:49
  S4: Well, just quickly, on your point on housing, I housing,
• 15:50
  S4: I'd say that they're their best moments in the past
• 15:53
  S4: few years was that kind of first 18 months of
• 15:55
  S4: the Albanese government, when the core focus of the Greens
• 15:58
  S4: was Max Chandler-mather talking about housing? They achieved huge cut through.
• 16:02
  S1: And they pushed the government. They pushed the government on
• 16:05
  S1: it like they really they created a lot of noise
• 16:06
  S1: around the issue and they pushed the government on it.
• 16:08
  S4: The smartest move by labor was deciding that they were
• 16:12
  S4: not going to out green the Greens on social justice issues.
• 16:15
  S4: They were going to turn the housing issue around on
• 16:17
  S4: Max Chandler-mather and Adam Bandt by showing to the public,
• 16:20
  S4: and they repeatedly hammered home this message. I remember a
• 16:22
  S4: press conference in the prime ministerial courtyard once that the
• 16:25
  S4: Greens were blocking progressive housing policies, and they made the
• 16:28
  S4: Greens look obstructionist, so they didn't try and beat them on.
• 16:31
  S4: You know, we are more woke than you. We are
• 16:33
  S4: more radical than you on X or Y issue. They
• 16:35
  S4: made them look like they were actually blocking progressive reform,
• 16:38
  S4: which Greens Greens voters don't like.
• 16:40
  S1: That's exactly what Kevin Kevin Rudd did with the CPRS.
• 16:43
  S1: I believe with the carbon Pollution Reduction scheme that they
• 16:46
  S1: voted against, and there's a strong argument if they'd voted
• 16:49
  S1: for it, we wouldn't have had the climate wars to
• 16:50
  S1: the extent we have in the last decade.
• 16:52
  S2: Jack, unpack that one just quickly. If they had voted
• 16:56
  S2: for the CPRS, the five Greens who voted with the liberals,
• 16:59
  S2: and remember two liberals crossed the floor to vote with
• 17:02
  S2: labor on that vote. If they had voted for that,
• 17:04
  S2: my theory, we'd still have a carbon pricing scheme. Kevin
• 17:08
  S2: Rudd wouldn't have lost the leadership. Tony Abbott wouldn't have,
• 17:12
  S2: you know, basically drawn with a Rudd government in the
• 17:15
  S2: 2010 election. You know, maybe Rudd serves two terms. Hands
• 17:18
  S2: over to Gillard. Maybe Gillard serves two terms. We'd be just,
• 17:22
  S2: you know, entering maybe the second term of the Wyatt Roy,
• 17:26
  S2: you know, Liberal government which was elected in 2018 or
• 17:29
  S2: something like it would have changed everything. Don't get me
• 17:32
  S2: started on that one.
• 17:33
  S1: It's a parallel universe. It's like a science fiction novel.
• 17:36
  S1: Now that we're going.
• 17:36
  S4: Into, what would you be doing in that world, James?
• 17:38
  S2: Well, I'd still be in Canberra reporting and enjoying my life.
• 17:42
  S1: You'd be. You'd be the one stable element.
• 17:44
  S2: Um, yeah. Just want to pick up something if I
• 17:46
  S2: can just jump in quickly. Jack. Just on the housing thing.
• 17:49
  S2: I agree with Paul. I agree with you. I think
• 17:51
  S2: it was a really successful first 18 months or so
• 17:54
  S2: focusing on that issue. Labour basically had promised $30 billion
• 17:58
  S2: to various housing messages, and they got nowhere in terms
• 18:02
  S2: of electoral dividend for doing that and it over time.
• 18:07
  S2: I mean, what Rudd didn't do was turn the tables
• 18:10
  S2: on the greens in 2010 over that CPRS vote. He
• 18:13
  S2: didn't close that deal in the minds of the Australian people.
• 18:16
  S2: Their vote went up at the 2013 election. Albanese did.
• 18:20
  S2: He was furious with Chandler-mather and the Greens for blocking
• 18:23
  S2: the construction of public housing, amongst other things, and he
• 18:27
  S2: successfully closed that deal in the minds of the Australian
• 18:29
  S2: people and said look at these.
• 18:31
  S4: I think he was more furious that they were taking
• 18:33
  S4: political wins off him. Not not about the actual policy.
• 18:36
  S1: Yeah, well, and as we've just discussed, it's really personal
• 18:38
  S1: for Anthony Albanese against the Greens. Right. But he was
• 18:41
  S1: able to basically paint them as um, you know, the
• 18:45
  S1: party that thinks the perfect is the enemy of the
• 18:47
  S1: good kind of thing.
• 18:48
  S2: Um, Yeah, exactly.
• 18:49
  S1: Just Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott. Tony. Right. Let's not confuse
• 18:53
  S1: those two. Um. Right.
• 18:54
  S2: I really often mistake people make.
• 18:57
  S1: Actually, I would I would really love a podcast with
• 19:01
  S1: those two. The two Tonys I would listen to.
• 19:03
  S2: I would subscribe to that podcast.
• 19:04
  S1: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Tony. Right. Our Tony wrote a lovely
• 19:07
  S1: piece this week about the noble tradition of the Senate turncoat,
• 19:10
  S1: because even just in recent times, we've had Lidia Thorpe
• 19:12
  S1: defect from the Greens to the crossbench, Fatima Payman defect
• 19:16
  S1: from Labour to crossbench. Jacqui Lambie just kind of dumped
• 19:19
  S1: Clive Palmer and went out on her own. But how
• 19:21
  S1: likely are such people, defectors, to be re-elected after they've
• 19:26
  S1: left a kind of major party or a group to
• 19:28
  S1: go and defect to another party or be on their own?
• 19:31
  S2: Uh, it's almost always. And if you've got Cory Bernardi,
• 19:34
  S2: jacks can't believe you forgot. Cory. Um, it's almost always
• 19:37
  S2: a spectacular failure. Um, the one exception in recent history,
• 19:41
  S2: at least, is Jacqui Lambie, who did lose her spot
• 19:44
  S2: in the Senate for a while, like a year, year
• 19:46
  S2: and a half. But that was a citizenship thing. But
• 19:48
  S2: she's sort of become brand Tasmania now, like she's a
• 19:51
  S2: colossus in her home state. But look at the rest
• 19:54
  S2: of these guys. They've disappeared without a trace. I think
• 19:56
  S2: Dio Wang, Glenn Lazarus, um, I mean, pick your, you know,
• 20:01
  S2: crossbench senator or former major party senator Gerard Rennick, who
• 20:04
  S2: was going to, you know, stir up the place, change
• 20:07
  S2: the world, start a movement. Nah, it just doesn't happen.
• 20:11
  S1: So there's a lot of colour and movement, but it
• 20:13
  S1: doesn't always kind of lead to re-election. I want to really,
• 20:17
  S1: really quickly talk about the US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth
• 20:21
  S1: comments at the. I think it was the Shangri-La dialogue
• 20:24
  S1: in Singapore. He told Australia that we need to up
• 20:26
  S1: our defence spending. Richard Marles seemed to kind of be
• 20:29
  S1: open to that conversation. What happened?
• 20:30
  S4: Paul Richard Marles struck a. So just going back, it
• 20:34
  S4: was the Shangri-La conference, as you say, in Singapore last week.
• 20:38
  S4: Pete Hegseth gave quite a sabre rattling speech, some would say,
• 20:42
  S4: suggesting that conflict is potentially just around the corner between
• 20:45
  S4: Taiwan and China, which a lot of experts also worry about,
• 20:50
  S4: and has again made the call that allies in the
• 20:52
  S4: region and in Europe need to massively up their defence
• 20:55
  S4: spending because effectively US, the US does too much work
• 20:58
  S4: and people rely on them too much. Again, another point
• 21:00
  S4: which which quite a lot of experts in the space
• 21:03
  S4: agree with. The awkwardness for the government came when Richard Marles,
• 21:06
  S4: our defence minister, was standing alongside Pete Hegseth. Or perhaps
• 21:10
  S4: it was the press conference just after their meeting, and
• 21:12
  S4: struck quite a positive tone about his conversation with with Hegseth.
• 21:16
  S4: A former Fox News host has a bunch of different
• 21:19
  S4: allegations against him, which he denies about treatment of former partners,
• 21:23
  S4: a controversial figure even in the Republican Party. One of
• 21:25
  S4: the more out there Trump picks. Really. Um, so Marles
• 21:29
  S4: positive tone, which he struck about wanting to engage with
• 21:32
  S4: Hegseth and saying he had a right to ask for
• 21:34
  S4: more defence spending and Australia was really up for the conversation.
• 21:38
  S4: That was controversial, particularly in the left, because it was
• 21:42
  S4: viewed as potentially more positive than it needed to be,
• 21:45
  S4: rather than sticking to the Albanese line, which he delivered
• 21:48
  S4: a few days later, that very firmly, Australia will set
• 21:52
  S4: its own settings. We will not be dictated to. We're
• 21:55
  S4: a sovereign nation. A more bolshie line that mimics Mark
• 21:59
  S4: Carney in Canada and how he dealt with Trump's hairy
• 22:02
  S4: chested approach. So there was a there was a differential there,
• 22:05
  S4: and it was explained to me as by a senior
• 22:08
  S4: person at the government yesterday, is just a kind of
• 22:11
  S4: indication of the very different personal styles of Albanese and Miles.
• 22:15
  S4: Miles is more into decorum, more of a nice guy, Albanese,
• 22:18
  S4: more of a hard head.
• 22:19
  S1: Anthony Albanese is going to suffer this kind of friendly
• 22:22
  S1: fire from the Trump administration for his entire term. And
• 22:26
  S1: if he gets another term, maybe even then, he seems
• 22:28
  S1: to have sort of settled on a strategy or a
• 22:30
  S1: line of defense. Is that going to hold up, do
• 22:32
  S1: you think, Paul?
• 22:33
  S4: Yeah, it's it's rhetoric that potentially has its limits as
• 22:38
  S4: you deal with this administration, which is going to be
• 22:40
  S4: in for the same period of time as the Albanese government.
• 22:43
  S4: Trump and his people are not going anywhere. It made
• 22:45
  S4: sense during the in the campaign, for example, to be
• 22:47
  S4: bolshie and stand up to the US. But the rub
• 22:50
  S4: is now hitting the road. And I think this week's
• 22:51
  S4: been an interesting week because it's the first, I think,
• 22:54
  S4: since the election where the atmospherics have just become back
• 22:57
  S4: to normal governance and the Australia's place in the world
• 23:00
  S4: is uncertain, and we're dealing with difficult allies and there's
• 23:03
  S4: huge pressure to muscle up on defence. So all of
• 23:06
  S4: these issues are unresolved and we skated over them a
• 23:09
  S4: bit during the campaign. But now they're they're hard.
• 23:11
  S2: One thing I'd add, though, I think the the question
• 23:15
  S2: of where to spend more money on defence, uh, how
• 23:18
  S2: to manage that, you know, in the context of a
• 23:20
  S2: budget that is in deficit for the next decade or
• 23:22
  S2: forecast to be, I should say, that's tricky. The politics
• 23:26
  S2: of this is not that tricky. And I think Albanese
• 23:28
  S2: knows that people like I think the majority of Australians
• 23:31
  S2: are a bit, you know, turned off by Donald Trump
• 23:33
  S2: and think, I don't want that sort of crazy here.
• 23:36
  S2: And I think there's a dividend for Albanese standing up
• 23:39
  S2: for us or not even standing up, but just saying
• 23:41
  S2: we'll act in our own interest.
• 23:43
  S1: I think that it's a very it's a very live
• 23:44
  S1: question whether or not Australians would want to join any
• 23:47
  S1: kind of war effort over Taiwan. Rightly or wrongly, which
• 23:50
  S1: is what Pete Hegseth kind of, you know, the prospect
• 23:52
  S1: that he raised, would we join such a military effort?
• 23:54
  S1: Would there be public approval of that? I'm not sure, chaps.
• 23:58
  S1: These are big questions, but we've run out of time.
• 24:01
  S1: Thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it.
• 24:05
  S4: See you later.
• 24:05
  S2: Thanks very much, Jackie.
• 24:10
  S1: Today's episode was produced by Tammy Mills with technical assistance
• 24:13
  S1: from Debbie Harrington. Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
• 24:17
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• 24:40
  S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you for listening.