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Labor’s big change of tune · The Front

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  Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
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  Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
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  Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, October eighth,
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  Speaker 1: another day, another dramatic shift in language from the Federal
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  Speaker 1: government on Israel. Health Minister Mark Butler has revealed his
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  Speaker 1: Jewish heritage and declared only Jews have suffered the brunt
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  Speaker 1: of social division since the October seven, twenty twenty three
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  Speaker 1: Hamas attack on Israel. That story and all the fallout
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  Speaker 1: is live right now at the Australian dot com Au. Today,
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  Speaker 1: The Australian's national editor, debnih Shanahan says Anthony Albanezi's shifting
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  Speaker 1: to a war footing. He's trying to fix his stance
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  Speaker 1: on Israel and turn the heat on the Greens as
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  Speaker 1: the next federal election approaches at speed. That's today's story.
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  Speaker 2: This will changed housing in Australia. It will benefit so
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  Speaker 2: many Australians.
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  Speaker 3: I want kids to have a childhood.
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  Speaker 4: That's why we'll introduce legislation this year for a minimum
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  Speaker 4: age for social media.
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  Speaker 3: Together we can get this done.
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  Speaker 1: You're paid super on your sick leave, you paid super
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  Speaker 1: on your annual leave, and there is no reason why
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  Speaker 1: it shouldn't be on paid parental leave too.
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  Speaker 2: It shows why it's really important to have a tough
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  Speaker 2: environmental regulator, and it's one of the reasons that we're
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  Speaker 2: establishing a National Environment Protection Agency.
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  Speaker 1: And tomorrow, together we begin the work of building a
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  Speaker 1: better future.
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  Speaker 4: He's one of the few people who has led a
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  Speaker 4: party from opposition into government. A handful of leaders have
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  Speaker 4: actually done that, so it is a great achievement for
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  Speaker 4: Antony Alberanzi.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor.
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  Speaker 4: Time has basically run out for the Albanesi government. The
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  Speaker 4: agenda that they set out. They've achieved a fair bit
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  Speaker 4: of their own aims, but a lot of that actually
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  Speaker 4: carries with it baggage from other sections of the community.
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  Speaker 1: An election must be held by late May. That's more
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  Speaker 1: than six months away, but when you start looking at
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  Speaker 1: the logistics, it's not that long at all. Election campaigns
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  Speaker 1: have to run for at least thirty three days from
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  Speaker 1: when the writs are issued that is when the starting
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  Speaker 1: gun is fired to voting day, so that means the
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  Speaker 1: PAM would have to call a May election in late
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  Speaker 1: March or April, and that means time is running out
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  Speaker 1: to get things done in Parliament.
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  Speaker 4: Look, I think that from what we've seen in the
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  Speaker 4: lead up to this final October sitting and then the
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  Speaker 4: final weeks in November is the government realizes it's not
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  Speaker 4: going to get much past the Greens and Coalition in
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  Speaker 4: the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis, the government's biggest promise that most Australians would remember
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  Speaker 1: was housing. It got one big piece through Parliament, the
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  Speaker 1: Housing Australia Future Fund, but now it's struggling to get
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  Speaker 1: support for two big policies, a tax incentive for landlords
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  Speaker 1: called build to Rent and an equity sharing program called
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  Speaker 1: help to Buy. That's where the government kicks in part
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  Speaker 1: of the purchase price and owns a stake in the property.
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  Speaker 1: What's going on with those bits of the legislation.
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  Speaker 3: They're not going to get a gender through.
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  Speaker 4: So what they're doing is saying, right, we are now
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  Speaker 4: going to put it up again and say to the Greens,
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  Speaker 4: we are going to embarrass you from time to time
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  Speaker 4: as every time you vote against this, we are going
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  Speaker 4: to tell the people you are against a housing bill
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  Speaker 4: which will give more housing to people on lower incomes.
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  Speaker 4: It's a political stage where at now I think we've
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  Speaker 4: passed the legislative stage.
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  Speaker 1: Anthony Albanez, he prides himself on being a parliamentary tactician.
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  Speaker 1: Housing is something that the Greens say they want to
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  Speaker 1: fix for Australians. So what exactly has gone wrong? Why
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  Speaker 1: haven't they been able to bring the Greens with them?
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  Speaker 4: Well, the Greens have wanted a whole series of add ons,
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  Speaker 4: particularly rent control.
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  Speaker 3: The government can't wear rent control. They flirted with.
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  Speaker 4: Doing away with negative gears during capital gains tax, and
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  Speaker 4: these are the things the Greens want and the Greens
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  Speaker 4: can say, look, Labor is just the same as the
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  Speaker 4: coalition and fight in these Green held and labor seats
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  Speaker 4: that the Green vote will grow as a result of that.
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  Speaker 4: Out in the wider electorate, it'll work against the Greens,
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  Speaker 4: but it's only in these key seats. So I think
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  Speaker 4: what we'll see is the Greens just say we're going
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  Speaker 4: to stick with this. Let labour try and embarrass us.
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  Speaker 4: Wheell trial embarrass labor in the seats where it counts.
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  Speaker 1: This coming Monday, October fourteen, it'll be a year since
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  Speaker 1: the Voice referendum.
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  Speaker 5: This is a very sad moment in the country's history.
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  Speaker 5: I think it will be at least two generations before
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  Speaker 5: Australians are capable of putting their colonial hatreds behind them
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  Speaker 5: and acknowledging that we exist.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis, could we say that the debate was worth having?
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  Speaker 1: This is maybe what Anthony Albanize might say that he
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  Speaker 1: put the question that we ventilated the issues, we had
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  Speaker 1: a big national conversation about it and we got to
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  Speaker 1: a resolution. Is that how you would say it? Or
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  Speaker 1: was it actually a complete disaster?
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  Speaker 4: My view is it was a complete disaster, particularly from
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  Speaker 4: Anthey Albanese's view. It was the first promise he made
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  Speaker 4: on election night and he did it in such a
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  Speaker 4: way that it never had a chance of getting off
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  Speaker 4: the ground. The way the government handled the Indigenous Voice
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  Speaker 4: to Parliament referendum was actually a disgrace. They did not
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  Speaker 4: try and convince people, they didn't try to bring people
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  Speaker 4: with them. There was no constitutional convention that there was
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  Speaker 4: no referendum convention.
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  Speaker 3: There was no real debate.
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  Speaker 4: It was just telling people what they should do and
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  Speaker 4: if they didn't vote, they were racists. Now, I think
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  Speaker 4: that this was a failure obviously because it didn't get up,
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  Speaker 4: but it was also a bigger failure for Labor because
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  Speaker 4: it trained people to vote against something that Labour supported.
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  Speaker 4: Now that's a very dangerous element for the government going
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  Speaker 4: into the election.
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  Speaker 1: That big sweeping statement on election night from Anthony Albanez.
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  Speaker 1: He said that he would implement the ulary Statement from
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  Speaker 1: the Heart in full. Now, of course that would include
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  Speaker 1: a Macarata commission, a truth telling process and progress towards
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  Speaker 1: a treaty with Indigenous people. Do you see either of
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  Speaker 1: those being part of the election agenda next time? Or
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  Speaker 1: is it We're not going to hear about this anymore?
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  Speaker 3: I think it's gone.
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  Speaker 4: It's has gone as far as Linda Bernie's gone back burner.
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  Speaker 3: Forget about it. We're not going to talk about it.
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  Speaker 4: He's already ruled out any possibility of any consideration of
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  Speaker 4: a Republican referendum. He has learnt his lesson about referendums.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Why is the government changing its tune on
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  Speaker 1: Israel now? As Parliament since this week, all the action
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  Speaker 1: will be live at the Australian dot com dot au,
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  Speaker 1: complete with analysis from our experts like Dennis To put
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  Speaker 1: it all in context. Join us at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: Com dot you It's a year now, Dennis, that we've
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  Speaker 1: been living in the post October seven world. That is
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  Speaker 1: a new conflict in the Middle East, a new generation
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  Speaker 1: learning what it's like to see that part of the
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  Speaker 1: world torn apart. How have you seen the government's messaging
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  Speaker 1: evolve over this year?
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  Speaker 4: It was appalling to begin with, it only got worse
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  Speaker 4: and we're seeing signs now that they may have realized
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  Speaker 4: that they've actually failed on a whole group of principles,
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  Speaker 4: which is hurting their credibility in the public. More generally,
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  Speaker 4: this is about more than just Israel or Gaza or
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  Speaker 4: Lebanon or Hesbala or Iran. It has raised the element
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  Speaker 4: of anti Semitism in society and we have seen real division.
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  Speaker 4: We are seeing a split in the social fabric. The
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  Speaker 4: government is being held responsible for this well, and beyond
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  Speaker 4: the foreign affairs area, what we are seeing is the
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  Speaker 4: need for reality to take hold in the labor government.
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  Speaker 4: So I think we'll see a big change.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So in the past two days we've seen Richard Miles
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  Speaker 1: say that Israel does have a right to respond, and
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  Speaker 1: then we've seen health Minister Mark Butler give a very
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  Speaker 1: personal and quite impassioned speech about his own family heritage
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  Speaker 1: and to say that it's only Jewish Australians who have
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  Speaker 1: suffered the extreme effects of antisemitism in the past year.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that that means that they're less worried
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  Speaker 1: than they were a few months ago about the impact
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  Speaker 1: that kind of language might have in seats in Western Sydney,
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  Speaker 1: for example, where there are a lot of Muslim Australians
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  Speaker 1: who care about this issue.
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  Speaker 4: The polling on the protests has demonstrated a much wider
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  Speaker 4: opposition and discontent with the government's position on Israel, not
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  Speaker 4: because of the foreign policy ins and outs of right
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  Speaker 4: to respond, the right to defend, or where you can
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  Speaker 4: do it, or which rivit you can stop at. It's
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  Speaker 4: about how it's affected Australian society. And what Mark Butler
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  Speaker 4: is saying is what people have been saying for months.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, it is not about having an equivalence between
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  Speaker 4: Islamophobia and anti Semitism. So what Mark Butler has done
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  Speaker 4: is actually mouthed what people in the public have been
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  Speaker 4: telling the government for months, and that is this is
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  Speaker 4: window dressing. And Mark Butler has called that out, and
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  Speaker 4: from my understanding this is a wider view within the
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  Speaker 4: government that it is not Muslims who are suffering in
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  Speaker 4: the large, it is anti Semitism which is the problem,
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  Speaker 4: and we must stand against that. This is a big shift.
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  Speaker 4: They can't deny it. And the question remains is the
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  Speaker 4: policy that Penny Wong put out which so upset the
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  Speaker 4: Israelis that there should be an idea that a set
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  Speaker 4: timetable be applied to the formation of a Palestinian state,
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  Speaker 4: with or without the cooperation that is Israel. Is that
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  Speaker 4: still policy, That's the policy question that has to be addressed.
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  Speaker 4: What senior ministers are telling me is that at least
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  Speaker 4: it's better late than never. But this is so much
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  Speaker 4: of the problem of the Albanese government that it takes
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  Speaker 4: them a year, literally a year, to come to a
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  Speaker 4: conclusion which has been obvious. They react eventually when they're
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  Speaker 4: pushed to a reaction, but it's too slow and it's
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  Speaker 4: not good enough. Yes, it might help them now in
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  Speaker 4: the next five months towards the election, but boy, it
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  Speaker 4: was hard work getting them there.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor. All the fun
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  Speaker 1: of federal politics is live twenty four seven at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot Au. Join our subscribers to make
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  Speaker 1: sure you're always the first to know