Latest / Inside Politics / Polls, the media and what's really driving One Nation’s support

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Polls, the media and what's really driving One Nation’s support · Inside Politics

0:01
S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley, and you're listening to Inside Politics from
0:04
S1: the age and the Sydney Morning Herald. A very big Sydney.
0:09
S1: Hello to our chief political correspondent, Paul Satchell, who's joining
0:12
S1: us from the Canberra studio, as usual.
0:14
S2: Morning, Jack. How are you?
0:16
S1: I'm very well, thank you. Paul, I just want to
0:19
S1: check in briefly on the budget for our listeners. The
0:22
S1: last time we talked about it, we were in what
0:24
S1: I called our budget backlash era, and now we've moved
0:27
S1: to some sort of other era, I think, which is
0:29
S1: like begrudged resignation or, I don't know, budget fatigue. But
0:33
S1: you had a story this week about some changes that
0:36
S1: the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, might make to the cutting back
0:38
S1: of the capital gains tax concessions that they announced in
0:41
S1: the budget. Tell us what the government is thinking about doing.
0:45
S2: Yeah, you're right. We definitely have moved into a new phase.
0:47
S2: The media cycle has moved on a bit from the budget.
0:49
S2: There is still stories every day in various papers about
0:53
S2: different groups who are complaining about various elements of the budget.
0:56
S2: Beat the truss element, how it might affect charities, how
0:58
S2: it might affect biotech sectors. So the backlash is is
1:01
S2: real and will continue. But the focus has gone on
1:05
S2: to One Nation, which we've been kind of locked into
1:07
S2: for months now, but we'll get on to that in
1:09
S2: a second. Yeah. So the story I had this week, Jack,
1:12
S2: was around this carve out that the treasurer, Jim Chalmers,
1:15
S2: has been hinting at for weeks. People will remember on
1:19
S2: budget night, the government said that they would consult with
1:21
S2: the startup and tech sector about how this new CGT
1:24
S2: model might affect businesses with a low cost base, high
1:27
S2: growth businesses. This is one of the key concerns around
1:31
S2: the budget that might actually stifle the incentives for people
1:34
S2: to build a new business, and what the government's looking
1:36
S2: at is potentially retaining the old 50% capital gains tax discount,
1:41
S2: the Howard era model that they've shifted away from for
1:44
S2: certain businesses, which, without going into huge technical detail, might
1:49
S2: suffer under the new model. This would be to try
1:51
S2: and ameliorate the concern that the changes might hamper business investment.
1:57
S2: The government's also looking at expanding the capital gains tax
2:00
S2: exemptions that already exist for companies with turnover of less
2:04
S2: than $2 million. They might push that up to somewhere,
2:07
S2: possibly in the $5 million region. I don't know where
2:09
S2: they'll push it to so that they can effectively tell
2:11
S2: the community, all of these smaller mum and dad businesses
2:14
S2: and various other, you know, shops, strip businesses, we're not
2:19
S2: coming after you don't listen to the scare campaign. They're
2:22
S2: also probably going to unwind an element around discretionary testamentary trust,
2:26
S2: which have been turned into a death tax scare campaign
2:29
S2: by the Liberal Party, arguably misleadingly or falsely Liberal party
2:33
S2: would say fairly. So. It's an attempt to kind of
2:35
S2: tamp down some of the the concern around the budget.
2:38
S1: Yep. Okay. And so presumably pretty soon they'll announce whatever
2:41
S1: tweaks they're going to make to their, to what they
2:43
S1: announced in the budget. And maybe, as you say, exempting
2:46
S1: particularly start up businesses from the axing of the CGT discount.
2:51
S1: So when are they likely to present their budget measures
2:54
S1: in legislation before the Parliament?
2:57
S2: So the week after next, and then the week after that,
2:59
S2: the government will try and ram this legislation through. So
3:02
S2: we're a week and a bit away from those sitting weeks.
3:05
S2: There'll be a very short two day inquiry, which has
3:08
S2: been widely panned by teals, greens, business groups, various others.
3:12
S2: And then we'll see the legislation put through the Senate
3:15
S2: in the week after that. And there'll be some really
3:18
S2: intriguing wrangling with the Greens and the coalition to see
3:21
S2: where the government can strike a deal. The Prime Minister
3:23
S2: is personally very confident that the Greens will cave eventually
3:27
S2: and not open themselves up to a what will be
3:30
S2: a really strong line from the government that the Greens
3:34
S2: are standing in the way of progressive reform, as they
3:36
S2: did last term, on housing, which labor used against them successfully.
3:40
S1: Yeah. And Paul, the other big story, and really the
3:43
S1: only story in politics right now is the growing rise
3:46
S1: of Pauline Hanson's One Nation. At the beginning of the week,
3:49
S1: we saw yet another poll, Newspoll, showing that One Nation
3:52
S1: was outpolling labor and the coalition as opposed to just
3:55
S1: the coalition. And then on Wednesday this week, Hanson launched
3:59
S1: a big fundraising campaign called Fire the Liar, which was
4:03
S1: a website, basically, and they sought donations, and they claimed
4:07
S1: to have raised $1.6 million from that by Thursday, which
4:10
S1: is absolutely extraordinary. It's a pretty good time to be
4:13
S1: Pauline Hanson, isn't it?
4:15
S2: It's a really good I didn't know I'd gone to 1.6.
4:17
S2: I thought it was like 800,000 yesterday when I left work.
4:20
S2: Bloody hell.
4:21
S1: That's what's being reported as of Thursday morning. So I
4:24
S1: mean and as we say, that's what they claim to
4:26
S1: have raised. They haven't actually declared that through the normal
4:29
S1: channels yet. And they're not they don't have to. But yeah.
4:31
S2: And I know there were journalists not, not me, but
4:34
S2: some of my colleagues and other outlets yesterday trying to
4:36
S2: interrogate this website, which is like, it looks like a
4:38
S2: Go Fund Me page and the numbers tick over. There's
4:41
S2: a claim the government, the government on Wednesday afternoon was
4:44
S2: saying in, you know, in hushed tones that they believed
4:46
S2: that this was like a fake website, effectively where the
4:50
S2: numbers just ticked up based on time, not based on
4:52
S2: anything else. So there's some conjecture around it.
4:55
S1: Yeah. We want to make that really clear that it's
4:57
S1: not verified and it hasn't been declared yet, so formally.
5:01
S1: So that's just what One Nation is saying.
5:02
S2: They've raised it wouldn't surprise. I mean, just before we
5:05
S2: get on to One Nation, I just thought like you've
5:07
S2: followed Canberra politics for a while. Jack, can you ever
5:09
S2: recall a period where polling sets the media narrative up
5:15
S2: so frequently? I feel like there is a poll now,
5:17
S2: whether it's any one of the four major newspapers, Sky news,
5:20
S2: some of the tabloids have polls now, some of the
5:24
S2: smaller media outlets like Capital Brief. There's a poll that
5:27
S2: sets up the agenda every Monday, and we spend two
5:29
S2: days talking about the rise of One Nation. It's quite
5:31
S2: a I feel like it's a new feature.
5:34
S1: I mean, I feel like this this definitely happened a
5:37
S1: lot during the Gillard government when they were just tanking
5:40
S1: in the polls. And it certainly happened to Tony Abbott.
5:42
S1: I mean, you know, polling the politicians always say that
5:45
S1: they don't take any notice of it, but they certainly
5:47
S1: exploit it whenever they can. And with something like this,
5:50
S1: I think it is quite amazing. It's become quite self-perpetuating. Like,
5:54
S1: the more we report on the polling, the more people
5:56
S1: are like, oh, that's pretty credible. Other people are doing it,
5:59
S1: you know. I'll add my name to in the One
6:01
S1: Nation column. I feel like that's happening. But that alone
6:04
S1: does not deliver votes. It doesn't, you know, it certainly
6:07
S1: doesn't deliver necessarily donations whether or not they can convert
6:11
S1: all of this surge in support and apparently in even
6:14
S1: financial support into votes for credible candidates that they may
6:18
S1: or may not be able to put up, is another question.
6:21
S1: I mean, I want to move on. You spoke to
6:23
S1: Opposition Leader Angus Taylor this week, and he made this
6:26
S1: sort of strange comments that he thought the budget had
6:29
S1: hurt the coalition somehow because it was bleeding votes, helping
6:35
S1: the vote bleed to to One nation, which made him
6:38
S1: sound a bit silly. There's no doubt that labor is
6:41
S1: under pressure from One Nation as well. But it's not
6:43
S1: existential despair like the coalition is in at the moment. No.
6:49
S1: Is there any sense that Taylor has been able to
6:51
S1: staunch the bleeding at all, or at least do a
6:53
S1: better job than Suzanne Lee.
6:55
S2: Mhm. Well, the basis for the leadership change in February
6:59
S2: was expressed most clearly by James Patterson, the frontbencher who
7:03
S2: was key to the move. And he said this is
7:04
S2: a change or die moment with bleed with bleed X
7:07
S2: thousand votes each month under Suzanne Lee. And things have
7:10
S2: to change. And at that point, the Newspoll primary vote,
7:13
S2: which was used to justify the move, was at 18%
7:16
S2: for the coalition. Angus Taylor increased that vote steadily over
7:20
S2: the space of the first couple of months, into the
7:23
S2: low to mid 20s in some polls, so he'd stop
7:26
S2: the bleeding and started to reverse course slowly and build
7:30
S2: up credibility again and do some policy work and get
7:32
S2: the team united, which he did do. But now they're
7:35
S2: back at 18% again. And as I think we said
7:38
S2: here last week, the expectation post Labor's budget was that
7:41
S2: a big high tax in broken promise budget would naturally
7:45
S2: lead vote back to the coalition. It hasn't done that.
7:48
S2: So our assumptions have been shattered about the normal way
7:51
S2: that politics works. And Angus Taylor's comments on Monday to
7:55
S2: our paper, as you say, were that the reason for
7:58
S2: the low primary vote and the sinking coalition primary vote
8:01
S2: was that Labor's bad budget had created discontent around the
8:05
S2: Canberra political establishment. It had broken faith with voters and
8:09
S2: that that had effectively rubbed off on both the major parties,
8:13
S2: which had been seen in the eyes of disillusioned voters
8:15
S2: as one and the same. You know, One Nation has
8:18
S2: this quite effective line out in the community that there's a, quote,
8:21
S2: uni party, labor and liberal exactly the same. They're both
8:24
S2: they're both out to get you and where your true, um, alternative.
8:27
S2: So Angus Taylor has kind of legitimised that by saying
8:30
S2: that Labor's bad budget has somehow hurt him. Now, his
8:33
S2: colleagues were quite mixed in their views on those comments.
8:35
S2: Some thought thought it was quite a weak comment to make.
8:37
S2: Others kind of agreed with him, but thought it probably
8:40
S2: was not worth saying out loud. They were quite mixed
8:42
S2: views on it.
8:43
S1: Mhm. I mean, he might well be right, actually, but
8:46
S1: that doesn't mean, as you say, that he should have
8:48
S1: said it out loud because he's not taking any responsibility
8:50
S1: for the fact that the vote of the party that
8:52
S1: he leads is still tanking. Newly appointed Liberal Party president
8:57
S1: Tony Abbott has been out and about. He was spotted
8:59
S1: having dinner with former Liberal donor Angus Atkin, who's a stockbroker,
9:03
S1: very wealthy stockbroker who switched his allegiance to One Nation.
9:06
S1: Angus Atkin and his wife donated 1 million to 1 Nation,
9:09
S1: and they were former, formerly Liberal Party donors. So he
9:13
S1: must be trying to woo back. I mean, one can
9:15
S1: surmise that perhaps he's trying to woo back some of
9:17
S1: that money to Liberal coffers. He's also said that he's
9:20
S1: going to do a listening tour of branch meetings. And
9:22
S1: he gave a speech in Washington where he's talked about
9:25
S1: the Liberals woes and mistakes. He's everywhere. He seems to
9:28
S1: have provided some fresh energy to the Liberals. And perhaps
9:31
S1: he's revved up the base. But, I mean, how successful
9:34
S1: is he likely to be in actually helping to resurrect
9:36
S1: the Liberal Party vote? And is he really the man
9:39
S1: who's going to lead the Liberals and the coalition out
9:42
S1: of this malaise, given the baggage he brings with him
9:44
S1: and given, you know, he's a very effective politician in
9:47
S1: some ways, or political operator, but he's not, I would say,
9:50
S1: not particularly good at. He doesn't have a track record
9:53
S1: of bringing people along with him in a broad coalition.
9:57
S2: Well, if the if the aim for Abbott was to
10:00
S2: rally the conservative base and try and bring social and
10:04
S2: cultural conservatives back in the coalition tent, I understood, I
10:08
S2: understood it, and so did even quite a few moderates
10:11
S2: in the party. There is a logical coherence there. This
10:14
S2: is a person who is respected in that part of
10:16
S2: the community, and quite adored by Liberal Party branch members
10:19
S2: who are considering or have already flocked to One Nation.
10:22
S2: The big risk with Abbott was that he would become
10:25
S2: involved in day to day political debate, take attention away
10:28
S2: from the opposition leader and cause shadow cabinet ministers to
10:32
S2: become answerable for the comments he made. He insisted he
10:35
S2: wouldn't do this. And they were kind of, you know,
10:38
S2: oblique warnings from people like James Patterson and Tim Wilson
10:41
S2: and others who insisted in the early days after he
10:44
S2: was elected that it was an administrative role. They're trying
10:46
S2: to diminish the role of president, to keep him in
10:49
S2: his box. And the first comment that Abbott made that
10:53
S2: cut across this idea that he would stick in his
10:56
S2: lane was on, I think it was Tuesday morning when
10:58
S2: he gave a very short quote to The Australian Financial
11:02
S2: Review on the prospect of a preference deal with One Nation.
11:05
S2: We're two years away from an election. The conversation around
11:08
S2: preferences is very problematic for the coalition because One Nation voters,
11:15
S2: if they hear a coalition MP distancing themselves from One Nation,
11:19
S2: are often saying, why are you pushing Hanson away? Work
11:22
S2: with her to defeat labor. On the other hand, if
11:25
S2: they do submit to one nation, there is a chance
11:27
S2: they are fairly characterized by labor as only being able
11:32
S2: to govern in coalition with One Nation, which is a
11:34
S2: highly damaging prospect for middle of the ground voters and swinging,
11:38
S2: swinging liberal labor voters. So Abbott's comment on Tuesday just
11:41
S2: raised up this debate. He almost made it, made a comment,
11:44
S2: which was a truism, which is that we put the
11:46
S2: right wing parties ahead of the left wing ones. They've
11:48
S2: done that at several recent elections. It's been a long time,
11:51
S2: decades since the coalition preferenced One Nation last. A lot
11:55
S2: has changed. If they did that, their own conservative voters
11:58
S2: would probably revolt against them. So there's not much expectation
12:02
S2: that they would. But just by raising up this debate,
12:04
S2: it was it was widely viewed in the party room
12:06
S2: as a really unhelpful comment from Abbott and has raised
12:09
S2: this concern about his role.
12:10
S1: Well, I mean, this is this is what I find
12:12
S1: interesting about it because it has sort of dominated discussion.
12:15
S1: I think I think actually ordinary voters and maybe low
12:18
S1: information voters actually don't know very well how our preference
12:21
S1: system works. So they do often follow how to vote cards,
12:24
S1: which is what we talk about when what we're really
12:26
S1: talking about, when we're talking about doing preference deals. You know,
12:29
S1: 30 years ago, former Prime Minister John Howard famously said
12:32
S1: he would not preference One Nation or preference some last.
12:34
S1: But as you say, a lot has changed. And I
12:36
S1: think John Howard's changed his view. But within the coalition,
12:40
S1: this these comments by Tony Abbott seem to have kicked
12:42
S1: off even more divisions. So you've got now Tony Pasin,
12:47
S1: who's a, you know, a very, very sort of hard
12:50
S1: conservative from South Australia within the Liberal ranks, a Liberal
12:55
S1: MP saying making comments to the Australian on Thursday, saying that,
13:00
S1: you know, not only should they do preference deals, but
13:02
S1: they should actually work out with One Nation, basically do
13:05
S1: a seat, carve up and say, we won't. The Liberals
13:08
S1: won't contest this seat. One nation can have that seat.
13:11
S1: But you know, in return, the Liberals will will contest
13:14
S1: this seat without any one nation competition. Now that's you're
13:18
S1: talking there about really a low C lowercase c coalition
13:23
S1: between the Liberals or the coalition and One Nation, which
13:26
S1: is extraordinary. It's been raised before by some hard right
13:30
S1: members of the coalition and others have shot it down.
13:33
S1: What how has that gone down, those comments.
13:35
S2: Well, you're right, they were seen as extraordinary. When this
13:38
S2: story went up on Wednesday evening, coalition MPs were sending
13:41
S2: it around to one another and they were gobsmacked. There
13:44
S2: is a big difference between what Abbott is talking about,
13:47
S2: which is closer coordination on preferences, emulating the Labor Greens model,
13:51
S2: which has been super successful on the left to create
13:54
S2: more discipline preference flows. There's a big difference between that
13:57
S2: and what Pasin, who's a shadow cabinet member, a close
14:01
S2: ally of Angus Taylor, a polarizing figure in the party
14:05
S2: room from South Australia, represents a conservative regional seat which
14:08
S2: just got dominated by One Nation at a state level.
14:11
S2: He's effectively argued that the coalition in One Nation should
14:15
S2: get together and split up the seats, so that they're
14:18
S2: not running against one another. That's pretty much what the
14:20
S2: Nationals and Liberal Party do now. Yeah, and so that
14:24
S2: comment was, you know, one of three remarks, sets of
14:28
S2: remarks this week. First, the Taylor remarks to me, then
14:31
S2: the Abbott comment to the Australian Financial Review, and then
14:34
S2: the Pasin comments, which were seen by observers in the coalition,
14:38
S2: has just been expressions of the sign of Confusion in
14:43
S2: coalition ranks, but the parson comments, the parson comments are
14:46
S2: the most clear expression of the panic that set in
14:49
S2: because they. For the first time it was an MP saying,
14:52
S2: all right, mate, the implicit message there is we can't
14:55
S2: win this election alone. We've got to work with One Nation.
14:58
S2: Labor's been arguing for weeks and months that the Liberal
15:02
S2: one National Party, as Albanese has taken to calling it,
15:06
S2: is the future of right wing politics. It's a highly
15:09
S2: damaging argument, and parson legitimized it through those comments.
15:12
S1: Yeah, that's that's what I find so interesting that they
15:15
S1: can't get their lines straight on One Nation. And we've
15:17
S1: known for a long time that One Nation has been,
15:20
S1: you know, the resurgence of One Nation is very, very
15:22
S1: difficult for the coalition to deal with. There's some people within,
15:25
S1: you know, liberal ranks who kind of despise everything that
15:28
S1: One Nation stands for, you know, the remaining moderates and
15:31
S1: even people like James Paterson, who is not a moderate,
15:34
S1: he's a conservative. You know, he's a very well respected
15:37
S1: member of their shadow cabinet. And he has previously given
15:40
S1: speeches saying that, you know, basically they should completely distance
15:43
S1: themselves from everything that One nation stands for. We should
15:46
S1: say Angus Taylor came out and said, there's absolutely no
15:49
S1: plan to basically carve up seats with One Nation. And
15:52
S1: James Patterson went on radio on Thursday morning and really
15:54
S1: pushed back against it as well. But as you say,
15:57
S1: this is playing into both the hands of One Nation,
15:59
S1: which is basically like, it just looks like it's in
16:02
S1: the ascendancy and it's almost got the coalition coming to
16:05
S1: it cap in hand, saying, hey, will you do business
16:08
S1: with us? Can we have a little bit of your success, please?
16:11
S1: And then the labor government, Albanese is able to say, well,
16:14
S1: you're all the same. You're the Liberal one National party.
16:16
S1: So they're almost turning that one Nation line about the
16:19
S1: uni parties onto the right wing parties. I mean, it's
16:22
S1: a it's a mess, isn't it?
16:24
S2: It's a diabolical situation for the coalition. I mean, if
16:26
S2: they dropped two points in the next poll and One
16:28
S2: Nation increases by one point, they'll be polling at half
16:32
S2: One Nation's support. So what these all of these sets
16:35
S2: of comments display this week is that there is total
16:38
S2: paralysis and confusion on the path forward, and there's a
16:42
S2: new party director in place, Lincoln Follow, who's about to
16:44
S2: start conducting some research on how to turn this around.
16:47
S2: But it's quite clear at this stage that there is
16:50
S2: no consensus on how to have this fight. Andrew Hastie,
16:53
S2: The frontbencher, came out this week and started attacking Pauline
16:55
S2: Hanson on the basis of her fervent support for Donald Trump.
16:59
S2: That was criticised by Sky news commentators and not the
17:02
S2: path forward. There's a bunch of different ideas on how
17:04
S2: to take on Hanson, but they're all still being germinated.
17:08
S2: So One Nation is totally ascendant at this stage. None
17:11
S2: of the normal rules seem to apply. Most people are
17:14
S2: not talking about Angus Taylor being removed as leader. People
17:16
S2: want to give him some time, but nobody yet is
17:19
S2: clear on how long this will take to turn around.
17:22
S2: If it will turn around the extent to which it will.
17:24
S2: And so in some darker corners of the corridors in Canberra,
17:27
S2: some coalition MPs are wondering to themselves whether the future
17:31
S2: configuration of right wing politics will necessitate some sort of
17:35
S2: looser alliance between the coalition and One Nation. But nobody
17:38
S2: wants to put that forward yet because, as we've just said,
17:41
S2: it's a damaging prospect. But then passengers said the quiet
17:44
S2: bit out loud.
17:46
S1: It's just I mean, this is this is Menzies great party.
17:49
S1: This is the part, you know, supposed to be a
17:51
S1: party of government that, you know, that captures the the
17:54
S1: aspirations of middle Australia and middle class Australians. And it
17:58
S1: seems it's edging sort of ever further to the sort
18:02
S1: of more right extreme of our politics. Meanwhile, you know,
18:06
S1: Anthony Albanese and the labor government, I mean, they're not
18:08
S1: out of the woods either. Pauline Hanson has been in
18:11
S1: WA talking about the seats that the labor seats she'd
18:14
S1: like to target there. There is a whole bunch of seats,
18:16
S1: particularly in Queensland labor seats, that one nation could have
18:19
S1: a good old crack at. What's your sense of what
18:22
S1: the Albany. And obviously this Fire the Liar campaign is.
18:25
S1: It's very incendiary, I would say very divisive and quite
18:28
S1: nasty language, which I personally dislike and I hate to
18:32
S1: see the return of because, you know, Julia Gillard was
18:35
S1: always called a liar. And that just led to so
18:37
S1: much vitriol, personal vitriol against her. I mean, what's the
18:40
S1: sort of Albanese government response on a more sort of
18:43
S1: structural level to this stuff?
18:45
S2: Well, it might be inflammatory language to use the term liar,
18:48
S2: as you say, but the government opened themselves up to
18:50
S2: that when they broke such clear core promises from an election.
18:53
S2: That was just a year ago. I thought there was
18:55
S2: a really intriguing press conference by the Prime Minister on
18:58
S2: Monday in his courtyard in Canberra. It was kind of
19:01
S2: a more general conversation about where the country was at
19:04
S2: his future agenda, the populist moment, how voters were feeling
19:09
S2: and the disillusionment out there. And I thought it was
19:12
S2: as important for what he didn't say as it was
19:14
S2: for what he did say in previous weeks. When asked
19:16
S2: about what nation he would often make, you know, points
19:19
S2: of ridicule about the opposition, effectively saying Angus Taylor's job
19:23
S2: is on the line. Making fun of the fact that
19:25
S2: One Nation is cannibalising his traditional opponent. There really wasn't
19:29
S2: any of that in this Monday press conference. It was
19:31
S2: a more somber, serious Prime Minister making a pitch to
19:36
S2: maintain faith in, you know, mainstream politics, he said. The
19:40
S2: economy is despite having challenges still fundamentally okay. We have
19:45
S2: a stable legal system. We we are one of the most,
19:48
S2: you know, successful democracies on earth. We still have a
19:52
S2: lot going for us. He used Richard Scalia, the Australian
19:56
S2: of the year, who recently passed, to make this argument.
19:59
S2: He said, Richard Scalia is the best of us. Let's
20:01
S2: stay united, not be divided. Effectively. The message was things
20:05
S2: are hard, but stick with this government. We are fighting
20:08
S2: for you still. And I thought that was intriguing because
20:10
S2: the Prime Minister has a pattern of, um, you know,
20:13
S2: he can be glib on issues until they really become
20:18
S2: clear to him. His risks that affect his political fortunes.
20:22
S2: And Labor's vote is now in the high 20s and
20:24
S2: early 30s in most polls. That's very, very low. About
20:28
S2: 5 or 6 percentage points of Labor's primary vote has
20:30
S2: gone to one nation. That could keep growing because we
20:33
S2: don't we we should just admit that we don't know
20:35
S2: what one nation's ceiling is anymore. Yeah, we made we
20:38
S2: made predictions previously and they've all been wrong. We've been
20:40
S2: wrong so many times. And so he's now clearly in
20:43
S2: his own mind, grappling with this moment in a more
20:45
S2: serious way and thinking about how he counters the One
20:48
S2: Nation rise to stop it eating into his base. Yeah,
20:52
S2: but you're right, it is not nowhere near as existential.
20:54
S2: It's not existential for Labour when it is for the coalition,
20:57
S2: but it is still a genuine threat to Labour.
20:59
S1: Yeah. And you can see, I mean, I think you
21:01
S1: can see that cabinet ministers start to get a little
21:03
S1: bit worried about it. Penny Wong was on the radio
21:06
S1: on Thursday, and she was sort of saying, you know,
21:08
S1: that she doesn't want it because she her face was
21:10
S1: used in this fire. The liar. Um, website. Um, yeah.
21:14
S1: So she was asked about that and she said she
21:15
S1: just doesn't want to get into personal politics, but she
21:18
S1: wants to stick to talking about policies. And, you know,
21:21
S1: the fact that she said that One Nation doesn't have
21:23
S1: any policy solutions to any of the problems they raise. So,
21:26
S1: I mean, that seems to be the line that Labor's taking.
21:29
S1: You know, let's get back to what they what actual
21:30
S1: solutions they have. What policies do they have? What do
21:33
S1: they have to say on health policy? What do they
21:36
S1: have to say on education policy, etc.? So they're bringing
21:38
S1: it back to basics. We'll see if it works. It
21:41
S1: may or may not. Inflation is still pretty thorny. People
21:45
S1: are under a lot of pressure. You know, these things
21:47
S1: make people feel that the system isn't working for them.
21:50
S1: And it really, really upsets people, I think, and makes
21:53
S1: them anxious. So yeah, it's tough times out there.
21:57
S2: Mhm.
21:58
S1: Anyway, thanks for talking. That was very interesting. And we
22:01
S1: will of course be updating and checking in and talking
22:04
S1: about it all again next week.
22:06
S2: I realized that I don't know if I've told either
22:09
S2: you or our producers this, but I'm about to go
22:12
S2: to the World Cup so you won't see me for
22:13
S2: a couple of weeks. I probably should have flagged this earlier.
22:18
S1: Is this for business or pleasure, Paul Seagal?
22:22
S2: Pure pleasure.
22:22
S1: Okay. You're a soccer guy.
22:24
S2: I'm a soccer guy. The country needs to get around
22:26
S2: the Socceroos, but they've just. They're a bit of a
22:28
S2: forgotten brand at.
22:29
S1: The moment, where so much Matilda stands in our house
22:32
S1: that we just don't. I don't know if we have
22:34
S1: room in our hearts, but, um, every.
22:36
S2: The Matildas are too good. They've just killed the blokes.
22:38
S1: Yeah. I know it's a, it's a terrible thing. Anyway enjoy.
22:41
S2: That. Great.
22:41
S1: The Matildas enjoy Vancouver. It's in Vancouver right.
22:44
S2: Yeah. Vancouver Seattle and then California.
22:48
S1: Enjoy. All right. We'll miss you. We'll see you in
22:50
S1: a few weeks.
22:50
S2: See you in a couple of weeks.
22:56
S1: You can read all of our political news on our
22:58
S1: websites theage.com.au or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai
23:05
S1: Wong with help from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is
23:09
S1: Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy
23:12
S1: and Tom McKendrick. Before you go, follow Inside Politics and
23:17
S1: leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. I'm Jacqueline Maley.
23:21
S1: Thank you for listening.