Latest / Inside Politics / Albanese wants to protect Australia ‘as it is’. But is it good enough?

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Albanese wants to protect Australia ‘as it is’. But is it good enough? · 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, November 21st. Hello.
0:09
S1: Chief political correspondent Paul Cicale.
0:11
S2: Hello Jacqueline Maley.
0:13
S1: So, Paul, recently on this podcast, we've been lamenting the
0:16
S1: fact that we've been fixated on the liberal opposition and
0:19
S1: all of their problems. And we've neglected the labor government somewhat.
0:22
S1: They've been given a free ride by this podcast last
0:24
S1: few weeks. So this week we're going to focus on labor.
0:27
S1: And to that end, we have a really, really special
0:29
S1: treat for listeners, a special guest. We have Sean Kelly,
0:33
S1: who is a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and
0:36
S1: The Age, and he was previously a labor staffer with
0:38
S1: Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. He's the author of a
0:41
S1: book called The Game A Portrait of Scott Morrison, and
0:44
S1: he has just published the latest quarterly essay, which is
0:47
S1: called The Good Fight. What does Labor Stand for? Welcome
0:51
S1: to the podcast, Sean.
0:52
S3: Thanks so much for having me on.
0:54
S1: Sean. Your essay, which is a very compelling essay, and
0:58
S1: it's interesting and it's nuanced and it's well written and
1:00
S1: it's full of sort of reflection and self doubt, as
1:02
S1: well as politics and policy, which I love. So it
1:06
S1: is about politics, obviously, and it's about Labour specifically, but
1:08
S1: it comes from quite a personal place for you. And
1:10
S1: I just wanted to start there. Can you tell us
1:12
S1: briefly about your time with Kevin Rudd and with Julia
1:15
S1: Gillard and your support for the labor cause generally?
1:18
S3: Sure. I mean, it was an incredibly exciting time working
1:22
S3: for Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. And before them, uh,
1:25
S3: Nicola Roxon, who I always feel bad for, she always
1:28
S3: gets left out of that equation. It was incredibly exhilarating
1:32
S3: working um, at the highest levels of government. The adrenaline
1:36
S3: is incredible. Um, the camaraderie is amazing. There is a
1:40
S3: sense that you are all working alongside each other in
1:44
S3: service of a cause. Um, it's perhaps not always clear
1:47
S3: to everyone exactly what that cause is, but there is
1:50
S3: nevertheless a sense that you have each other's backs. And
1:53
S3: that is despite the amazing enmities that exist at times
1:56
S3: in the Labor Party. There's a sense that you might
1:59
S3: well hate each other, but you hate the other people
2:02
S3: even more. So all of that's very exciting.
2:04
S1: Even during the Rudd-gillard-rudd years, that was the case.
2:07
S3: Ah I think yeah, yeah, there there was that sense. And,
2:12
S3: you know, one of the interesting things about those years
2:15
S3: is that, um, sometimes you would absolutely be working alongside
2:20
S3: people who you knew were in the other camp, you know,
2:23
S3: to go to some of the heart of this essay.
2:26
S3: I worked every day, um, at Question Time Tactics as
2:30
S3: Julia Gillard's senior press secretary. That was one of my
2:32
S3: main jobs. Anthony Albanese was leader of the House. We
2:35
S3: would be there at the same time in that meeting
2:37
S3: every day. Um, he was obviously a lot more important
2:40
S3: than I was. And it was, you know, it was
2:43
S3: no secret there had been a leadership challenge. It was
2:46
S3: no secret that he was in the Kevin Rudd camp. Um,
2:48
S3: but he was also working absolutely for the government, the
2:51
S3: Julia Gillard led. And we could have discussions about those things,
2:56
S3: but there was never any sense of deception.
2:58
S4: With the new parliamentary year about to get underway, the
3:01
S4: pressure on Julia Gillard's leadership is intensifying. Despite the party's
3:06
S4: best efforts, it's become the dominant issue in labor politics
3:10
S4: and the most divisive.
3:12
S3: You might know that you were on different sides, in
3:14
S3: a sense, but in the greater fight of every day,
3:18
S3: you're on the same side. And I think that that
3:20
S3: was really interesting.
3:21
S1: So take us to the heart of the the quarterly
3:24
S1: essay that you've written. You've just said that, you know,
3:26
S1: you worked very closely with Albanese and you knew him
3:29
S1: in his professional stage, you knew him in the workplace,
3:32
S1: and you had quite positive impressions of him as a
3:34
S1: person and as a, as a politician. But in this essay,
3:39
S1: you are basically questioning the purpose of his government. So
3:42
S1: tell us a little bit about what the essay is about.
3:44
S3: Well, it came from two places. It came from a
3:48
S3: day I was driving to pick up my son from childcare,
3:51
S3: and I called my grandfather's wife, who is a very
3:55
S3: impressive person as a real political Cassandra, and she told
3:58
S3: me a long time before Kevin Rudd was removed that
4:01
S3: the Labor Party would remove him, which was a dramatic
4:03
S3: prediction at the time. But obviously she was correct. Anyway,
4:06
S3: that's all irrelevant. She happened to ask me what I
4:09
S3: believed and I didn't really have a good answer. And
4:12
S3: this kind of this perplexed me. After working for so
4:15
S3: long in politics.
4:16
S1: As in what you believed politically in terms of your ideological, exactly.
4:19
S3: How I would articulate it. And it started me thinking
4:22
S3: about where belief resides in each of us, whether it's
4:25
S3: a reaction to things, you know, somebody says something, I
4:29
S3: may have a strong reaction to it. And that makes
4:30
S3: me feel like I believe something. But if you ask
4:33
S3: me what I believe, can I articulate it? Is it
4:36
S3: an articulated philosophy or is it just just this sense,
4:39
S3: just this feeling? And so that was that was kind
4:42
S3: of one half of it. And then the other half
4:44
S3: was watching this labor government, uh, and having this sense
4:49
S3: of Anthony Albanese ism, you know, personally as a man
4:52
S3: who knew his own mind, Knew his own heart, wasn't
4:54
S3: afraid to say those things. And the sense as well,
4:58
S3: that the government was doing some good things. Was labor
5:00
S3: tinted in certain obvious ways? Workers wages, Medicare were central
5:04
S3: to its concerns. And yet there was something that nagged
5:08
S3: at me, and it took me a while to figure
5:11
S3: out what the word for it was. And the word
5:12
S3: I figured out eventually was belief. What did this government believe?
5:17
S3: And the two questions come together, you know, what do
5:19
S3: I believe? What is belief and what does this government believe?
5:23
S3: When you really start to interrogate the gap between feeling
5:26
S3: something and what belief looks like in the world, the
5:31
S3: philosopher Daniel Dennett, who's an American, says the belief is
5:34
S3: a matter of prediction. If it allows you to predict
5:37
S3: the way somebody will act in the world, then you
5:39
S3: can say that they believe something, you know. An example
5:42
S3: given is they it's raining. There's water in the gutter.
5:47
S3: People believe that they will get wet by walking close
5:50
S3: to it. So therefore you can predict that they will
5:52
S3: dodge around it. Their belief matches their actions. Essentially, your
5:55
S3: belief matches your actions. And if you look at the
5:59
S3: government's actions, if you look at their patterns of behavior,
6:03
S3: I think it's much harder to decide what they believe.
6:06
S3: You can look at Anthony Albanese, you can listen to him,
6:08
S3: you can think, well, he seems to believe these things.
6:11
S3: But if you try to work backwards and deduce them
6:13
S3: from the government's actions, it's less certain. And so really,
6:17
S3: the essay is trying to wrestle with that gap because
6:20
S3: I swung wildly in relation to this government. There are
6:23
S3: days when I think, ah, I'm being unreasonable. They're doing
6:27
S3: they're doing some good things on on rights for gig
6:30
S3: workers or universal childcare. And then there are days when
6:33
S3: I think these guys are wasting their jabs. They are
6:36
S3: they are doing bugger all. And the bits that they
6:39
S3: are doing, they are doing incredibly slowly. And the essay
6:42
S3: really is an attempt to grapple with those two, you know,
6:46
S3: volatile opinions of mine, which, you know, as I've talked
6:50
S3: to people, I found it quite common.
6:52
S2: Sean, just on Jack's earlier point on us wanting to
6:54
S2: talk a bit more about the government, I have felt
6:56
S2: the palpable sense of of not putting enough scrutiny on
6:59
S2: the government in the last couple of months because of
7:01
S2: how occupied we've been with the opposition. So I just
7:04
S2: want to give you credit for in your riding every
7:06
S2: week or every second week in our paper, continuing to
7:09
S2: focus on the government and its flaws and the chinks
7:11
S2: in its armoury as a Labour person yourself. It's I
7:14
S2: think it's kind of proved the value of op eds
7:17
S2: in my mind that you've built up this argument over
7:20
S2: a long period of time. I think you're one of
7:21
S2: the first to start talking about the government's level of
7:23
S2: ambition last term. And it's seeped into the debate. Ministers
7:27
S2: rate it, the Prime minister reads it. They don't read
7:29
S2: it with joy all the time. And they talk about
7:31
S2: your column. So it's it's a good kind of insight
7:34
S2: into the power of a newspaper columnist. I want to
7:37
S2: put what I think the counterargument is to your thesis
7:41
S2: on ambition. I was sitting at Oz's, the cafe in
7:44
S2: Parliament with, um, a minister last Tuesday, and I think
7:48
S2: they'd just read one of your columns and they can
7:51
S2: test it strongly. Their view is that this government has
7:55
S2: put the country back on the right track, on climate,
7:57
S2: on energy, to re-engage with Asia, stabilise relations with China
8:01
S2: and done a bunch of big things on the foreign
8:03
S2: policy front. It's brought wages back up. It's bringing orderly
8:07
S2: government back after a period of chaos. And yes, there's
8:11
S2: nothing absolutely transformational there. But given the coalition in the
8:15
S2: minds of the Labor Party has moved out to the fringe,
8:18
S2: there is a sense inside labor now that they are
8:21
S2: the custodians. They want to be the party of national government.
8:25
S2: As the Prime Minister repeatedly says in part, just to
8:29
S2: occupy the Treasury benches to keep the other guys out,
8:32
S2: which is a kind of reversion on previous thinking when
8:35
S2: it was the coalition, because they believed labor were the
8:38
S2: radicals needed to occupy the Treasury benches to stop bad
8:41
S2: things happening. On Labor's part, how would you respond to that?
8:44
S2: Do you understand the alternative view that this government is
8:47
S2: actually has a lot of merit to it.
8:49
S3: Oh, look, I absolutely understand it and I don't entirely
8:52
S3: discount it. I think that there is a chance that
8:55
S3: the government's argument that it is behaving responsibly, behaving, as
9:01
S3: you say, in an orderly manner, that it is acting incrementally,
9:05
S3: by which it means building up achievements over time, that
9:08
S3: at the end as a whole, look much, much larger
9:12
S3: than they do as individual bits and pieces. I think
9:15
S3: that argument absolutely may turn out to be true. Um,
9:20
S3: and I keep an open mind on that, and I
9:22
S3: keep an open mind on that. In the essay and,
9:26
S3: you know, because I think outside of the question of
9:29
S3: judging whether the government is good or bad, I think
9:32
S3: we should note that everything you're saying reflects a really
9:36
S3: significant development in our politics, because that argument is the
9:41
S3: argument that the conservative side of politics has traditionally put
9:45
S3: for itself. It is essentially, it's essentially an argument for management.
9:50
S3: And some of those things are labor issues, things like
9:52
S3: rising wages. But for the most part, they are about
9:56
S3: managing things effectively, managing foreign relations in particular, effectively putting
10:02
S3: things back on a solid track of stability. And I
10:07
S3: think you can see this in a lot of the
10:09
S3: government's rhetoric. And this is one of the things I
10:11
S3: write about in the essays. You know, Anthony Albanese had
10:14
S3: this phrase that he started using before the election campaign
10:18
S3: of the Australian Way, and that sounds like a positive
10:21
S3: doctrine of belief. He later termed it progressive patriotism, a
10:25
S3: term that I think he first introduced on this podcast.
10:28
S3: And it started from a place of saying, we don't
10:31
S3: want to copy the ideologies of any other nation, we
10:33
S3: don't want to be American. So it came from a
10:36
S3: kind of negative framing, and it helped bring these these
10:38
S3: most famous phrase about himself is I like fighting Tories, which,
10:42
S3: of course is defining yourself in opposition to your opponents.
10:45
S3: And when it was asked earlier this year what it meant,
10:47
S3: he said it means not giving up the gains that
10:50
S3: have been made. So both of those things are framed
10:53
S3: about not doing things, and they're both about protecting Australia
10:57
S3: as it is protecting it from American influence, protecting it
11:01
S3: from having the gains that have already developed here from
11:04
S3: being torn away. They might be laudable aims. You might
11:06
S3: even be able to kind of paint them as labour aims,
11:09
S3: but they are about defending the status quo. And this
11:12
S3: ties into exactly what you're saying, Paul, about wanting to
11:15
S3: be the natural party of government. And I think, you know,
11:18
S3: this is a really important question. What is lost for
11:21
S3: a centre left government when they decide that they want
11:24
S3: to be the natural party of government?
11:25
S1: Sean, the biggest argument against what you're saying is the
11:28
S1: voice referendum. And Anthony Albanese stated that as his first priority,
11:33
S1: basically when he gave his election night speech, when he
11:35
S1: won the election against Morrison, and then he went ahead
11:38
S1: and he did it. And, you know, it was presented
11:40
S1: as a very radical reform, whether or not you believe
11:42
S1: that would have been the case. It was certainly a
11:44
S1: difficult reform that was not at all central to the
11:48
S1: concerns of most voters. I think we can say that
11:50
S1: it would have been a big change because it was
11:52
S1: a constitutional change. He's burnt a lot of political capital
11:56
S1: on it, and obviously he didn't succeed, but he did
11:58
S1: try something really big.
12:00
S3: Okay, I completely agree. I think the voice was a
12:03
S3: courageous decision. It was courageous that he continued on with it.
12:06
S3: There are a lot of critics of that decision. I
12:09
S3: understand where they're coming from, but I think that you
12:12
S3: can argue and I do argue that it was the
12:14
S3: right thing to do.
12:15
S5: While tonight's result is not one that I had hoped for,
12:19
S5: I absolutely respect the decision of the Australian people because
12:24
S5: this moment of disagreement does not define us.
12:27
S3: And I think this is a really interesting issue about
12:30
S3: timing in relation to this government. In Anthony Albanese's first term,
12:35
S3: he did two really difficult things. One was the voice
12:37
S3: campaign and one was breaking his promise on the stage.
12:39
S3: Three tax cuts.
12:40
S1: Yeah.
12:41
S5: Today I announce that from the 1st of July this year,
12:45
S5: our government will deliver a tax cut for every single
12:49
S5: Australian taxpayer.
12:51
S3: They both happened in the second year of three, which
12:54
S3: meant that at the end of that year, he still
12:56
S3: had a year to recover. If both went pear shaped.
12:58
S3: Only one did. But if both had gone pear shaped,
13:00
S3: he still had a year to recover before the election,
13:03
S3: and he proved himself very good at recovering in a
13:05
S3: few months before the election. And prime ministers tend to
13:08
S3: get into habits. You know, I think there are. They
13:11
S3: often do something. It works for them, especially when it
13:14
S3: works and helps them win an election. They think, well,
13:16
S3: I will try that trick again. And so I think
13:18
S3: there is every chance that as we head into the
13:20
S3: second year, which will pretty much be in after the
13:23
S3: summer break, we'll start to see the government try some
13:27
S3: hard things again. Mhm. And I think that, you know,
13:30
S3: the other, the other big caveat you have to place
13:33
S3: on criticisms of the government is that inflation was a massive,
13:37
S3: massive factor in the first three years and arguably it
13:42
S3: still is a factor, I think, more than it is
13:44
S3: mostly acknowledged in the political debate. I think people's mood
13:46
S3: is pretty.
13:47
S1: It's certainly a factor in people's minds. And I think,
13:49
S1: you know, you can have economic data. You know, the
13:51
S1: economic data shows that it's easing, it's coming off, but
13:54
S1: it's still front of mind for a lot of people.
13:56
S1: And life is expensive for a lot of people. You
13:58
S1: talk in the essay about conflict and how labor has
14:01
S1: become quite conflict averse. So they're not they've maybe been
14:04
S1: a bit burned by the Rudd-gillard years in terms of
14:08
S1: taking on big interests. So they don't want to have
14:11
S1: a big fight with something like the gambling lobby because
14:14
S1: they've really, like, basically lost their spine over gambling reform,
14:18
S1: it seems. And also that they're not having fights within
14:21
S1: themselves or healthy conflict within the caucus. So you sort
14:25
S1: of make the argument that if the coalition ever does
14:27
S1: get its act together, and they actually do have to
14:29
S1: proactively kind of, um, state a case or take a
14:33
S1: case for reform or for policy to the Australian people,
14:36
S1: they will have lost that art. Tell me why you
14:38
S1: think they need to retain the fight. Because, as you say,
14:41
S1: Albo likes to fight.
14:43
S3: Just to start somewhere slightly different. You know, you asked
14:46
S3: me at the start what my experience of working in
14:48
S3: the Rudd and Gillard government's was. I said how exciting
14:50
S3: it was, and that's true. And it was also incredibly
14:54
S3: bleak and depressing at times.
14:56
S1: And I was there. I was on the other side.
14:59
S1: I remember, I.
14:59
S3: Remember how bleak and depressed I was at times.
15:02
S1: Yes.
15:03
S3: And afterwards. And I know I am not alone in this, I,
15:08
S3: I really battled in thinking through everything that had happened
15:12
S3: during those years and what mistakes I'd made and what
15:14
S3: I could have done differently. And of course, cabinet ministers
15:18
S3: from that time have gone through the same process, and
15:22
S3: they dominate the Albanese cabinet. And I think they have
15:26
S3: internalized the difficulties that that government faced. And you can
15:29
S3: absolutely understand that. And so I think those battles with
15:32
S3: big business have have really scarred them. And then they've
15:36
S3: also internalised internalize this sense of not wanting conflict internally.
15:40
S3: And I think this is a huge mistake, because while
15:42
S3: it is true that the Rudd-gillard governments disunity tore it
15:46
S3: down eventually, that's not where the problem started. The problem
15:49
S3: started with a bunch of MPs who were completely united,
15:52
S3: who would not say anything to an incredibly strong and
15:55
S3: electorally successful prime minister. And that eventually led to problems
16:00
S3: because because problems fester and were left too late. And
16:02
S3: it feels like we might be closer to that situation
16:04
S3: than the other.
16:05
S1: Well, then it became a conflict of egos like it was.
16:07
S1: It was completely about egos battling it out. And it
16:10
S1: was nothing about the Australian public, and it was nothing
16:12
S1: about policy.
16:13
S2: And if Rudd-gillard has been a huge part of determining
16:18
S2: this government's attitude to how they go about things, I
16:20
S2: think the other big moment that plays a big role
16:23
S2: in how they think about risk is the Shorten Morrison
16:26
S2: 2019 election.
16:27
S6: He's the only one talking about a death tax.
16:29
S7: A death tax, death taxes, death tax.
16:31
S8: There is a plan for a death tax.
16:32
S6: Secret plan for a death tax.
16:33
S7: Death tax, death tax, death taxes.
16:36
S9: Labor. It's the bill. Australia can't afford authorized by a
16:40
S9: Liberal Party of Australia.
16:41
S2: Canberra a lack of appetite to take on a big
16:44
S2: fight over tax or economic policy that might spark a reaction.
16:48
S2: I think you saw that with the Prime Minister's back
16:50
S2: down on the pretty small $3 million super tax idea,
16:53
S2: which caused a lot of heartache for Jim Chalmers.
16:56
S1: It's interesting. I was thinking about this like, which big
16:58
S1: interests have they taken on? They've taken on big tech.
17:00
S1: You could say with the social media reforms.
17:02
S10: The Albanese government has released guidelines for its world first
17:06
S10: social media ban for people under 16.
17:08
S1: But I don't see any political downside in that because,
17:11
S1: you know, Big Tech is based in the United States,
17:14
S1: first of all, and it's, you know, these kind of billionaire,
17:17
S1: you know, tech oligarch types who have no, you know,
17:20
S1: no natural sympathy with the Australian people and no lobbying
17:22
S1: interests here. But, Sean, I mean, you talk about the
17:26
S1: kinds of things if labor was to make big, bold
17:28
S1: reforms or it was to get its fight on and
17:30
S1: actually take on some interest to better the nation, you
17:33
S1: do identify some problems, like really deep seated kind of
17:36
S1: depressing problems that they should be turning their minds to.
17:39
S1: Tell us about that.
17:40
S3: I think most of us are aware, um, increasingly, I
17:45
S3: think that there is something I don't know how to
17:48
S3: put this not not quite right, you know, in the
17:50
S3: way that we live, uh, you know, phones are too
17:52
S3: big a part of our life. There's this sense that
17:54
S3: we always need to be productive all of the time.
17:57
S3: And you can see the the kind of correlative of
18:01
S3: this in the facts around our politics. You look at
18:04
S3: the education system and you see the inequality that is
18:07
S3: widening up. I've taken to describing it as an effectively
18:10
S3: segregated school system between private schools and public schools. You know,
18:14
S3: I learned, I think, last year that, uh, you would
18:17
S3: expect the school system to shrink the inequality between advantaged
18:20
S3: and disadvantaged students. Our school system does the opposite. Students
18:24
S3: are further apart by the end of the 12 or
18:27
S3: 13 years. And that that seems to me a perversion
18:30
S3: of what the school system should be doing. Um, housing.
18:33
S3: Obviously we know people can't afford houses without rich parents.
18:37
S3: The chasm between one side of society and the other
18:41
S3: side is getting wider and wider. And where once upon
18:45
S3: a time you could say, well, there are a bunch
18:46
S3: of people who are doing it tough, and perhaps the
18:48
S3: government is not looking after them enough. I mean, certainly
18:50
S3: the government has not historically looked after them enough. That
18:54
S3: group is growing larger and larger. Uh, and I think
18:57
S3: this this inequality is a significant problem. I think that
19:01
S3: we are we are a bit complacent here in thinking
19:04
S3: that we can never get to the place that pretty
19:06
S3: much every other country has gotten to at some point,
19:10
S3: which is inequality, um, widens dramatically, increases dramatically, and political
19:16
S3: problems come out of that. People start to be attracted
19:18
S3: far more to the extremes. We think the compulsory voting
19:21
S3: is a real, um, protection against that. Uh, but I
19:25
S3: think we we should keep in mind the possibility that,
19:29
S3: as Andrew Lee, a Labour frontbencher, has said on current
19:31
S3: trend lines, we are a generation away from us style inequality.
19:36
S3: You know, that is a really worrying statistic.
19:39
S1: It's a sense, I think, that you can't work your
19:41
S1: way out of it like you can't you can't get it.
19:43
S1: You know, you can't get a good education, you can't
19:45
S1: get a good job, you can't work hard to.
19:48
S3: People need.
19:49
S1: Hope. Bring opportunity to yourself and to your family, which
19:52
S1: is very, as you say, it's a recipe for sort
19:54
S1: of great social division. Sean. I mean, if you if
19:57
S1: you were in government now, if you were advising the
20:00
S1: Prime Minister, not just on Question time tactics, unfortunately, Question
20:04
S1: Time isn't nearly as exciting these days as it was
20:07
S1: back then. We can say that at least. What would
20:09
S1: you be telling him? What would you be pushing and
20:12
S1: nudging him to do?
20:13
S3: Oh, look, I mean, first up, I don't envy anyone there.
20:16
S3: You know, one of the things I think this government
20:18
S3: believes is that the reform landscape is much harder than
20:21
S3: it used to be. Now, I don't I don't know that.
20:23
S1: Do you think that's true?
20:24
S3: I don't know, you know, we were talking before about
20:27
S3: Bill shorten. And I think Paul's absolutely right that that
20:30
S3: that really lingers. But I think not that much. Significant
20:35
S3: reform has been tried in the social media era, uh,
20:39
S3: in the polarized era. So we don't we don't really know.
20:42
S3: And when labor looks at those things, you know, the
20:44
S3: carbon price say, well, that was tried when Julia Gillard
20:47
S3: was facing a storm of misogyny and Kevin Rudd was
20:49
S3: right behind her. Bill shorten was trying to do these
20:52
S3: things from opposition. Trying to make big reforms from opposition
20:55
S3: has always been incredibly difficult. I'm trying to make them
20:58
S3: from government is a whole different thing. So no, I
21:00
S3: think I think reform might be more possible than we
21:04
S3: have come to believe. And I think this government has
21:06
S3: advantages that other governments generally don't have. We have a
21:10
S3: prime minister with decades of parliamentary experience. We have an
21:13
S3: experienced cabinet. We have a government facing a depleted opposition,
21:17
S3: and it has a huge majority. I think more might
21:19
S3: be possible than this labor government has allowed itself to believe.
21:23
S3: What should they be trying to do? I can pull
21:25
S3: out a couple of things. I think it is amazing
21:29
S3: that the Gonski reforms, which is one of this government's
21:31
S3: proudest achievements, delivering in full on the funding that public
21:34
S3: schools need. It's something that they boast about and fair enough,
21:38
S3: except that some schools in in states won't get that
21:42
S3: full funding until 2034. So there are kids starting school
21:46
S3: now who won't get the funding that they're supposed to
21:49
S3: get until they're almost at the end of their schooling.
21:52
S3: That's one thing. You could speed that up. I think
21:54
S3: you should fix the university funding fees mess, and I
21:57
S3: think you could do a lot more on housing. One
22:00
S3: of the things that really shocks me, you know, in
22:02
S3: my productivity summits and our economic reform summits or whatever,
22:05
S3: all the titles that they've had, jobs and skills summits.
22:08
S3: And is that the government? I don't think so. Correct
22:11
S3: me if I'm wrong. Hasn't just had a massive housing
22:14
S3: summit and then come out at the end of the
22:16
S3: housing summit and gone, we're going to do every single
22:18
S3: thing that has been put to us. You know, negative
22:21
S3: gearing by itself, capital gains by itself is not going
22:24
S3: to fix the supply problems about housing, but they are
22:27
S3: going to do a fair bit to address inequality.
22:29
S1: Or at least I mean at least roll it back.
22:31
S1: I don't know, it's such a low hanging fruit. Like
22:33
S1: maybe just limit it, you know, to investment properties. Not
22:37
S1: sure ten you know.
22:38
S11: So I think there is more.
22:41
S3: On on all these areas. And I guess I would
22:42
S3: go back to it's almost this it's not exactly that
22:46
S3: there's this thing they haven't done as this thing, this
22:49
S3: particular thing they haven't done. Franklin Delano Roosevelt obviously huge,
22:52
S3: huge reformer, a huge reforms in the New Deal. Um,
22:56
S3: some people say actually it was incrementalism. Actually, he did
23:00
S3: a bunch of small things and they added up. But
23:02
S3: also he did this. He tried lots of things and
23:04
S3: he said that. He said, try something. If it fails,
23:07
S3: try something else. And I think one of the difficulties
23:10
S3: with this government slow moving approach is not that they're
23:12
S3: doing nothing. It's not that they're doing quite enough or
23:15
S3: quite large enough things to know that things don't work
23:18
S3: in order to be able to try something else instead.
23:20
S3: I think because they're doing this smattering of things quite slowly,
23:24
S3: the things that they're doing Inevitably a fair portion of
23:27
S3: what you're trying. Government doesn't work. And so if you
23:30
S3: look at some of the areas they're operating in at
23:33
S3: the moment, you know, there are signs that they won't
23:35
S3: hit their renewable energy target, that they won't hit their
23:38
S3: emissions targets, um, that they won't hit their housing target. And,
23:43
S3: you know, try more stuff I think would be the
23:46
S3: would be the big, big suggestion.
23:48
S2: I think you're you're one of your early answers, Sean.
23:50
S2: You said that the second year of this government will
23:52
S2: be an important one. I think that that's right. That's
23:54
S2: the way that the people in and around the cabinet
23:56
S2: are thinking about this term, that this year is the
23:58
S2: year of delivery. Once Christmas comes, they can start to
24:01
S2: have a think about how they broaden their agenda not
24:04
S2: to go vastly beyond the mandate, but to do more
24:07
S2: in the economic space, do more in the social space,
24:10
S2: and potentially to move back into the indigenous field, which
24:13
S2: they've just vacated since The Voice. And I think it's
24:16
S2: also worth just noting that while this government looks, you know,
24:20
S2: supremely successful because of the last election result, which in
24:23
S2: which everything went wrong for the coalition. Peter Dutton's campaign
24:26
S2: was a mess. The Trump factor was big and everything
24:29
S2: went right for labor. It was a brilliant campaign from
24:31
S2: Paul Erickson, the labor national secretary and campaign boss. But
24:35
S2: there were long periods of the last term where, because
24:37
S2: of this, as you describe it, lack of ambition, the
24:40
S2: government appeared to be drifting. There was a period leading
24:43
S2: up to the Dunkley byelection at the start of, I
24:45
S2: think it was 24, where before they made the stage
24:48
S2: three tax change there was a real sense of drift,
24:51
S2: a real sense of question around what the government was
24:54
S2: up to, and they needed a circuit breaker because this
24:56
S2: slow pace, no huge reform agenda style wasn't working for people.
25:02
S2: So it's not a model that is always successful. And
25:05
S2: I think the people around the Prime Minister know that
25:07
S2: the biggest risk he has is to just bask in
25:09
S2: this popularity and not thrust forward. So I think the
25:12
S2: second year will be an important year to see what
25:15
S2: the character of this government is.
25:17
S3: Yeah. Look at Wayne Swan, the party president. I think
25:20
S3: you wrote about this. Paul gave a really?
25:21
S2: Yeah. That speech. Yeah.
25:22
S3: Really interesting speech. Because actually, um, it was a pretty
25:26
S3: dark speech. You know, he talked about labor support being
25:30
S3: wide but shallow. He talked about complacency being the handmaiden
25:33
S3: of decline. And essentially, the pride always came before a
25:37
S3: fall that you always felt you were a hero. He
25:40
S3: talked about Paul Keating in 93, becoming a 0 in 1996.
25:44
S3: And alongside, he made this really interesting point about, um,
25:47
S3: the greatest number of labor supporters still are there because
25:52
S3: they were inspired by Gough Whitlam. And, you know, Swanee
25:56
S3: isn't the type of person to make a, um, a
25:59
S3: really sharp point against anyone in politics right now. But
26:03
S3: I felt that was as close as he was likely
26:05
S3: to come to making a really serious warning.
26:09
S2: And it was his last major speeches. President, and he
26:11
S2: thought about it a lot. I remember speaking to him
26:13
S2: in the lead up. He he felt it was an
26:15
S2: important contribution that he knew would fuel conservative arguments around
26:19
S2: the government's election mandate, because he acknowledged what a lot
26:22
S2: of coalition people believe, which was that, yes, they have
26:25
S2: a huge majority, but their primary vote is low and
26:27
S2: they're not healthy as an institution.
26:29
S1: Yeah, I guess they've always got to keep that front
26:31
S1: of mind, don't they? That only 1 in 3 Australians.
26:34
S1: And I'm sure that's one of the reasons why Albanese
26:36
S1: is so cautious and conflict averse and intent on bringing
26:40
S1: people together or bringing people along with him, because, yeah,
26:42
S1: only 1 in 3 people voted one for labor at
26:45
S1: the last election, despite their huge majority.
26:48
S2: He's a realist, total realist, and he's looking at what's
26:50
S2: going on in the UK, where the Labor Party has
26:52
S2: been pulled apart by the Corbyn side of the party,
26:55
S2: and the Greens are thriving there. He's looking at the
26:57
S2: Democratic Socialists in the US, with Mamdani showing what they
27:00
S2: can do to the centre left. So he has a
27:03
S2: strong argument to make that he's kept the centre left
27:05
S2: together and developed a coherent model. But the ambition side
27:09
S2: of the Labour Party, which Sean is kind of advocating for,
27:11
S2: will always be an important part of the equation as well.
27:14
S1: Yeah, it's the engine.
27:16
S3: Why? The second year is so interesting, I think because
27:18
S3: every every leader's Leaders strengths eventually become their weaknesses. Uh,
27:22
S3: you know, and Anthony Albanese strength has clearly been his caution.
27:26
S3: It clearly worked for him at the last election in
27:27
S3: amongst a whole bunch of other factors, as you say, Paul.
27:30
S3: But they start to lean on those strengths. They start
27:32
S3: to think, this thing worked for me. I'm going to
27:33
S3: lean on and lean on it, and eventually it turns
27:36
S3: out to be the wrong tool for the time. And
27:39
S3: I think that will happen at some point. And a
27:42
S3: real question for the second year is whether Anthony Albanese
27:45
S3: learns to balance that caution, or I should say, perhaps
27:48
S3: repeats the balancing act he managed in that second year
27:51
S3: of his first term.
27:53
S1: Yeah, complacency is the hallmark of decline. Wayne Swan I'm
27:57
S1: going to tell that to my daughter next time she
27:59
S1: refuses to brush her teeth or do some important task, um,
28:04
S1: tooth decay and decline. Sean, it's been so much fun
28:07
S1: talking to you and so interesting. And thank you for
28:10
S1: thinking through all these issues and taking your enormous intellect
28:14
S1: and insight into this problem, because they're all important problems
28:18
S1: that we're talking about. I think sometimes we treat politics
28:21
S1: really flippantly, but we forget that it has the power
28:24
S1: to change people's lives. And that's what we're talking about today.
28:27
S1: So thank you. Um, in good. And congratulations on the
28:30
S1: quarterly essay. Have fun at the launch tonight, which I
28:33
S1: unfortunately can't attend. We'll see you soon.
28:35
S12: Thank you so much for having me on.
28:37
S13: Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Paul.
28:40
S1: Today's episode was produced by Julia Carr Katzel, with technical
28:44
S1: assistance from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills.
28:48
S1: And special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. To
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S1: listen to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow
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S1: Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen
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29:07
S1: to us by visiting The Age or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley.
29:13
S1: Thank you for listening.