Latest / The Morning Edition / Does a broken promise matter in a broken system, and Angus Taylor’s migrant plan

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Does a broken promise matter in a broken system, and Angus Taylor’s migrant plan · The Morning Edition

0:01
S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley, and you're listening to Inside Politics from
0:04
S1: the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This week on
0:07
S1: the podcast, we have so much to talk about and
0:09
S1: it's all very exciting. We're going to dive into the budget,
0:12
S1: which of course was handed down by Treasurer Jim Chalmers
0:14
S1: on Tuesday evening. And later we're going to talk about
0:17
S1: the seismic result at the Farrer by election. Joining me
0:20
S1: from Canberra, we have, as usual, our chief political correspondent
0:23
S1: Paul Circle. Hello, Paul.
0:25
S2: Good morning Jack. How are you?
0:27
S1: Good. How was your budget experience this year?
0:30
S2: I remember watching as we were talking about before the
0:33
S2: podcast Devil Wears Prada two on Sunday night and a
0:36
S2: bit of football in the afternoon. And that's pretty much
0:37
S2: the last thing I can recall. It wasn't just in
0:39
S2: the crazy whirlwind of looking at budget documents and speaking
0:43
S2: to a range of lobbyists and other stakeholders at night
0:46
S2: at pubs. It's a it is a crazy week in Canberra.
0:49
S2: How was yours in Sydney?
0:51
S1: You know, we get locked up, we eat a lot
0:53
S1: of junk food. I mean, in terms of the actual
0:56
S1: budget itself, I've covered, I don't know, more budgets than
0:59
S1: I care to admit. And it was actually quite interesting
1:01
S1: and exciting, even though we had a lot of the
1:04
S1: a lot of the measures were leaked out beforehand, maybe
1:07
S1: even more than previous budgets, but not since the horror
1:11
S1: sort of 2014 budget that Tony Abbott handed down where he,
1:14
S1: you know, cut a lot of services. Has there been
1:17
S1: a budget, in my experience, that has actually sort of
1:20
S1: done so much heavy lifting in where people are really
1:22
S1: having a swing. So that was interesting. As I said,
1:25
S1: a lot of it was leaked out before. Did we
1:27
S1: learn anything new in the budget papers themselves that we
1:30
S1: didn't already know?
1:31
S2: It was an extraordinary amount of leakage, and people in
1:34
S2: the cabinet have been scratching their head as to how
1:36
S2: this has occurred. There's been a sense from people, some
1:39
S2: people have believed that these leaks have been deliberate from
1:42
S2: the treasurer or the Treasurer's office to front run, or
1:45
S2: to get the conservative press onside, because they've been leaked
1:48
S2: to the Australian. That's just untrue. It appears as if
1:50
S2: the source has come straight out of Treasury and who
1:52
S2: knows the motivation. So we knew that the government was
1:55
S2: going to look at capital gains tax discount. We knew
1:57
S2: they were going to look at negative gearing changes. There
1:59
S2: were some questions about how exactly those what the details
2:03
S2: would be around the tweaks. We knew that the government
2:06
S2: was also, again, because of a leak, that the government
2:09
S2: was going to provide a small tax relief through something
2:12
S2: called the Working Australians tax offset. The Watteau or Watteau,
2:17
S2: depending on who you talk to.
2:18
S1: Yeah. I mean, the pronunciation itself is controversial if the
2:22
S1: payment isn't exactly.
2:23
S2: Reminds me of the Australian cricketer and famously bad reviewer
2:27
S2: of uh, when he is being done for L.b.w. Shane Watson,
2:32
S2: who was referred to as Watto. So that's what I
2:34
S2: think of every time I hear this. What we didn't
2:36
S2: know about the Watto is that it's not just a
2:39
S2: one off, it's a permanent feature of the tax structure,
2:41
S2: which will happen at tax time every year. The government
2:44
S2: can scale it up or down, depending on the circumstances,
2:47
S2: and it appears to be a new mechanism Jim Chalmers
2:49
S2: likes is keen to use. Instead of actually tinkering with
2:52
S2: the tax scales or brackets, you can just increase this
2:57
S2: this Watto to target people in certain parts of the
2:59
S2: income bracket. So we didn't learn heaps. That was new.
3:02
S2: But there's there nevertheless is a lot in this budget,
3:05
S2: as you say.
3:05
S1: Yeah. And we got detail around the CGT and the
3:08
S1: negative gearing changes. So negative gearing can still be applied
3:11
S1: to new builds. So obviously that's trying to encourage more
3:14
S1: construction of houses. And the CGT changes will be grandfathered
3:19
S1: as we thought as of June 20th, 2027. And they
3:24
S1: did sort of sneak in this minimum tax rate, which
3:27
S1: we thought was quite interesting when we were looking at
3:29
S1: the budget papers. They're going to have a minimum tax
3:31
S1: rate of 30%. So you can't basically fandangle your affairs
3:35
S1: so that you're paying a really, really low marginal tax
3:38
S1: rate on your capital gains of that year. They've basically
3:42
S1: pitched at 30%, which is about what most people, most
3:44
S1: working people pay around the middle, middle tax income bracket.
3:49
S1: So I thought that was interesting. I also I want
3:52
S1: to get your take on this. The budget was framed
3:55
S1: very intentionally by the government as an intergenerational equity argument
3:59
S1: for younger people who are locked out of home ownership
4:01
S1: in particular, and who are much less likely to take
4:04
S1: advantage of the tax breaks of CGT discount and negative gearing.
4:08
S1: But actually, I feel like they snuck another agenda in there,
4:11
S1: which was gearing the tax system away from accumulated wealth
4:15
S1: and asset people with assets and towards people who work
4:19
S1: for a living, like you and I, the wage slaves.
4:23
S1: What do you think about that?
4:25
S2: Well, you don't know about my personal life.
4:26
S1: That's true, I don't. I don't know about the complex
4:29
S1: tax structures or trust structures under which you manage your
4:32
S1: enormous wealth, but I'm assuming it's a.
4:34
S2: Well, it's a real web.
4:35
S1: There's Cayman Islands, you know, havens involved. Yeah. No, I'm
4:39
S1: assuming that you're a salaried, um, a salaried person such as.
4:43
S2: Yeah. It's a good assumption. Um, yeah. So you're right.
4:47
S2: This budget was pitched as a big moment where a
4:51
S2: progressive government wanted to address a long term trend towards
4:56
S2: that has seen the taxation of assets and wealth taxed
4:59
S2: at a lower rate than labor income. And so many
5:03
S2: economists in Australia have argued for a long time that
5:05
S2: the tax system penalises young people. Personal income tax scales
5:08
S2: are pretty onerous compared to many other countries. The higher
5:11
S2: tax rates kick in at relatively low income levels and
5:15
S2: the rates are pretty high as well. Paul Keating agrees
5:17
S2: with this. Bill Keelty, the labor luminary, agrees with this,
5:20
S2: and many older people have been able to offset rental
5:23
S2: income losses and and use trusts to split income and
5:27
S2: get really big capital gains benefits from selling houses that
5:30
S2: have been propped up by housing bubbles over years. So
5:34
S2: all of those tax concessions have been reined in. And
5:36
S2: so the government argues that over time, this will lead
5:39
S2: to more people at auctions who are younger, being able
5:43
S2: to buy a house at a decent price because they
5:45
S2: won't be outbid by an investor. They say that over
5:49
S2: the next ten years, 75,000 new first home buyers who
5:52
S2: wouldn't have previously existed will come into the system. That
5:56
S2: sounds like a lot, but the overall rate of home ownership,
5:59
S2: the government believes, will increase from about 66% of Australians
6:03
S2: to about 67%, so it's hard to create huge change.
6:06
S2: They also estimate that the price growth of houses will
6:11
S2: be about two percentage points lower every year after these
6:14
S2: changes kick in. So if house prices were going to
6:16
S2: grow by 8% next year, they reckon they might grow
6:19
S2: by about six. There were some estimates in our paper
6:21
S2: that could actually be more significant than that. And so overall,
6:24
S2: the whole political pitch of this budget is young people
6:26
S2: are having a crap time. And so these generous concessions
6:30
S2: that have existed for older Australians, largely older Australians, but
6:32
S2: also lots of 30 people in their 30s and 40s
6:35
S2: will be struck out. The counter-argument that you'll see the
6:38
S2: Liberal Party lean into very heavily in coming weeks is
6:42
S2: that by grandfathering these changes, particularly for negative gearing, you
6:46
S2: lock in the advantage that older people have had. They've
6:49
S2: also had inflated house prices, that the gains that have
6:52
S2: already come into those assets. And because of the transitional
6:57
S2: arrangements around capital gains tax, they'll still largely be able
7:00
S2: to sell that property and get a huge gain from it.
7:03
S2: So the big backlash will come from the Liberal Party
7:06
S2: to say, you're locking out a whole generation of young
7:09
S2: people who wanted to take advantage of these arrangements and
7:12
S2: become wealthy, and you've entrenched the advantage that older people have.
7:15
S1: Yeah. So that's what I wanted to get to next because,
7:18
S1: I mean, there's been so much coverage of the budget measures,
7:20
S1: and we don't want to do that in detail on
7:22
S1: this podcast. But I do want to talk about how
7:25
S1: these measures and the framing of the budget might land.
7:27
S1: So already we have a sense of what the opposition
7:30
S1: response has been so far. I should say that we're
7:32
S1: recording this before we get the formal budget reply speech
7:35
S1: from Angus Taylor on Thursday night. But we know already
7:39
S1: that Angus Taylor, you know, the coalition is going to
7:41
S1: oppose the tax changes they're going to go along with.
7:45
S1: They'll support the there's infrastructure money, infrastructure money for construction
7:50
S1: of houses, basically. So they're going to support that. What
7:52
S1: else do we know about how the coalition's responding to
7:56
S1: the budget?
7:58
S2: Yeah. Listeners might remember maybe 6 or 8 weeks ago,
8:02
S2: Andrew Hastie, who's seen as a leadership alternative to Angus Taylor,
8:06
S2: was considering running a few months ago when on insiders
8:09
S2: on the ABC. And when asked about some of these
8:11
S2: property tax concessions and attacks on big gas firms, said
8:15
S2: to David Speers, the host, we need to be open
8:18
S2: minded about these things.
8:19
S3: I'm no one's going to reward us for a final,
8:21
S3: last stand for neo liberal politics. Okay. Um, there's no
8:26
S3: medal for that.
8:27
S2: Effectively, what he was saying was that the boomer class
8:30
S2: that has made most of the the money out of
8:33
S2: the big housing bubbles of recent decades are our constituency.
8:37
S2: But we need to grow. And so maybe we should
8:39
S2: have a think about rebalancing the housing market. That argument
8:42
S2: has not had much of a look in since labor
8:46
S2: actually revealed what they were doing. What you've seen is
8:49
S2: a Liberal Party revert to their natural instincts around aspiration
8:53
S2: and lower taxes, and I don't blame them for that,
8:55
S2: by the way. There's probably not that much room for
8:57
S2: nuance in this debate. When the government brings forward $100
9:00
S2: billion in tax hikes on people who have made wealth
9:04
S2: over the next ten years. You're the Liberal Party. You
9:07
S2: believe in lower taxes. The government didn't take these measures
9:09
S2: to the last election. I think they were left with
9:11
S2: very little opportunity, really, to do anything but oppose. They
9:14
S2: haven't actually fully committed to repealing these changes. If they
9:17
S2: win the next election, they have said they'll fight them hard.
9:20
S2: And I think you'll see a new energy into the
9:22
S2: Liberal Party, a kind of renewed purpose around what the
9:25
S2: party stands for, which is lower taxes and aspiration. If
9:28
S2: the party's been confused about that in recent years. This
9:31
S2: moment clarifies that. But there is still a question about
9:34
S2: in a few years, if they go to an election,
9:35
S2: do they actually commit to repealing them? Because that causes
9:38
S2: a huge budget black hole for them?
9:40
S1: Yeah, I know. I mean, Tim Wilson has been questioned
9:42
S1: about this. I thought he was sort of saying that
9:44
S1: they would repeal them, but maybe we can check in
9:46
S1: on that next week as well, because I'm sure we'll
9:48
S1: still be talking about it and see if.
9:50
S2: If we have to, we will. They're using Caveated.
9:52
S1: Language. Yeah. So it'll be interesting because journalists will push
9:55
S1: them and we'll try to we'll try to get a
9:57
S1: response from that on that. There's two sort of tranches,
10:00
S1: I suppose, or two elements to their attack on labour.
10:04
S1: One is the broken promises line. So obviously Anthony Albanese
10:08
S1: has been loath to call his commitment or his statement,
10:11
S1: as I think he said, that there would be no
10:13
S1: changes along the lines of the ones they've just introduced.
10:16
S1: He said that during the election campaign, he's been loath
10:19
S1: to call it a promise and therefore a broken promise. Obviously,
10:22
S1: it's been framed already by the opposition as a broken
10:24
S1: promise and even a lie to the electorate. Do you
10:28
S1: think that that will gain much traction given, you know,
10:31
S1: if these changes turn out to be broadly supported by
10:34
S1: the public?
10:35
S2: Mhm. Well, the government's banking on the public reaction being
10:39
S2: similar to the one that occurred when it rejigged the
10:42
S2: stage three tax cuts in the middle of the last term.
10:45
S2: The difference here is that the stage three tax cuts
10:47
S2: allowed all Australians to still get some benefit from that
10:51
S2: tax rejig. All Australians still received a tax cut, but
10:54
S2: they became less generous at the top end, and they
10:56
S2: became more generous for middle and lower income earners. So
10:59
S2: there weren't many losers out of that. This time there
11:02
S2: is a bunch of people who will feel like they
11:05
S2: wanted to invest and now can't. And people who are
11:08
S2: already investors, except if they're in the grandfathered part of
11:12
S2: the equation, will feel like this is an attack on
11:15
S2: their wealth. The government hopes and thinks that there's a
11:19
S2: bigger part of the electorate who don't believe they have
11:22
S2: any access to asset wealth, who never who don't intend
11:27
S2: to become investors because they're just trying to get their
11:29
S2: foot in the door and that those people will reward
11:31
S2: the government. So there's this cleavage that occurs out of
11:35
S2: this policy, where aspirational Australians who are not tied to
11:40
S2: labor on progressive social values, you might see some of
11:43
S2: those voters in the middle drift back towards the coalition.
11:46
S2: But labor believes the numbers suit them here, and that
11:49
S2: most Australians think that the system is broken, and a
11:52
S2: big change like this won't hurt them. On the language
11:55
S2: the The government said before the budget that if they
11:58
S2: were to change their mind, as we all reported, they
12:01
S2: were going to, you'd hear an explanation from them after
12:04
S2: the budget on why they did so, and they would
12:06
S2: be upfront with the Australian people about the reason for
12:09
S2: the change in decision on budget night and in the
12:12
S2: day after. There wasn't that much new language on why
12:15
S2: this move was necessary. They were making the same arguments
12:18
S2: before the budget really as after, which was that the
12:21
S2: system is broken. We need major change, and a big
12:25
S2: rejig of the system was required because most Australians feel dislocated.
12:30
S2: Albanese and Chalmers have acknowledged that their changes are controversial,
12:35
S2: but when asked about the broken promise or as you say,
12:38
S2: the lie, they've not used that language, not acknowledged the
12:41
S2: legitimacy of that kind of language, and instead have reverted
12:45
S2: to this much more bland line around a change in
12:49
S2: decision or a change in mind. We've come to a
12:51
S2: different view. So they're not. Then they have said that
12:54
S2: they'd be up front, but they're not in a, you know,
12:58
S2: you know, full way acknowledging what they've done here.
13:01
S1: No. Well, I think that I mean, not having any
13:04
S1: special insight into it, but I just I just keep
13:06
S1: thinking back to the, the broken promise, the liar charge
13:10
S1: that was levelled against Julia Gillard when she introduced the
13:12
S1: carbon tax, which, you know, I guess some people were
13:17
S1: hurt by it. But overall, anyway, putting aside the merits
13:20
S1: of the actual policy, it was allowed to be framed
13:22
S1: as a lie and as a broken promise. And I
13:25
S1: think that they're probably they've learned a very harsh lesson
13:27
S1: from that. And they're like, whatever the actual objective truth
13:30
S1: of the situation, we're not going to call it that.
13:32
S1: So we're not going to let we're not going to
13:34
S1: sort of play along with that narrative.
13:36
S2: So and, and I won't say on, on at any
13:39
S2: with a camera in front of me at any point that, yes,
13:41
S2: we did break a promise because that becomes an election
13:43
S2: ad for the Liberal Party.
13:44
S1: Yeah. I'm just not going to give them that line.
13:45
S1: And then I'm going to focus on the merits of
13:47
S1: the policy itself. So I want to talk briefly about
13:50
S1: the economic settings that were in the budget because, you know, very,
13:54
S1: very high up in budget paper one under the economic setting,
13:57
S1: sort of, um, heading. They talk about the different scenarios
14:01
S1: and how the Iran war, whether or not it ends
14:03
S1: soon or not, soon has the capacity to blow out
14:06
S1: of the water. All of the projections that the government
14:09
S1: has like spent, you know, sort of the next 100
14:12
S1: hundreds of pages detailing on one scenario. They they said
14:15
S1: that if, you know, Treasury has modelled that if crude
14:18
S1: oil reaches $200 a barrel, which a lot of economists and,
14:21
S1: and commentators say is highly possible, inflation will spike up
14:24
S1: over 7%, unemployment goes up to 5%. Productivity growth as
14:28
S1: well is very sluggish on the government's own figures. So
14:31
S1: productivity growth, we know, is a huge sort of drag
14:34
S1: on the economy or low productivity growth. And the government
14:37
S1: itself is saying it's only going to be about one 1.5%
14:40
S1: per annum, which is pretty low. And GDP growth is
14:44
S1: not is not that great either, 1.75% this coming year, 2.25%
14:50
S1: the following year. So I guess a lot of people
14:53
S1: have pointed out as well that there's $1 trillion debt
14:55
S1: like gross debt in next year's projections. The interest on
15:00
S1: that debt is the second biggest impost on the budget,
15:03
S1: I think, after the NDIS. So the broader picture here
15:06
S1: is that the government maybe has not done a lot
15:09
S1: to address the deficits and the interest bill that future
15:12
S1: generations will have to carry is huge. How much is
15:16
S1: the coalition going to sort of talk about that, as
15:18
S1: well as the actual sort of tax cut policy?
15:21
S2: Well, that's I think you've gone to the nub of
15:24
S2: what the coalition's argument will be. Angus Taylor, when he
15:27
S2: was shadow treasurer at the last election, put forward this
15:29
S2: policy under the Dutton administration to index tax brackets. So
15:33
S2: that would mean that every year. So the bracket creep
15:36
S2: is not as severe. Bracket creep is when you push
15:38
S2: up just through wage rises into higher tax brackets. Those
15:42
S2: brackets would go up every year in line with either
15:45
S2: inflation or wage growth. So people are not just artificially
15:48
S2: paying more tax over time. Australians pay much more income
15:51
S2: tax now than they did in previous years, and the
15:54
S2: budget shows that the reliance on income tax from wage
15:57
S2: earners will just continue to grow over time, unless there's
16:00
S2: substantial change in the way we tax labour income. So
16:05
S2: the coalition will say that the government's changes artificially, you know, through,
16:10
S2: they would say, virtue signalling signal to younger voters that
16:13
S2: the government's on their side. But in the long run,
16:16
S2: because of our high tax, high spend economic model, that
16:22
S2: government outlays will inevitably be funded by higher taxes on
16:26
S2: wage earners because there's no other option. So on Thursday night,
16:29
S2: you'll see Angus Taylor say that the coalition wants to
16:32
S2: do something substantial to reward work, to incentivise aspiration and
16:37
S2: make a structural change to the way we tax labor income.
16:40
S1: Yeah. And we should say as well that Jim Chalmers
16:42
S1: has sort of left open the possibility of extending the
16:45
S1: Watto or the Watto, that $250 tax back for earners
16:49
S1: or cash back, I should say, for income earners. So
16:52
S1: both parties are looking at doing something on income tax
16:55
S1: or for wage slaves by the next election. The government
16:59
S1: and Jim Chalmers didn't mention immigration at all in the budget.
17:02
S1: It just didn't come up. But Angus Taylor will make
17:04
S1: it a central part of his budget reply speech. We
17:06
S1: know that. And he's going to explicitly link immigration to housing.
17:10
S1: So you've written about that this week that basically he's
17:12
S1: going to say the immigration tax should should exactly match
17:15
S1: the number of houses built, which is slightly illogical because,
17:19
S1: you know, more than one person lives in one house,
17:22
S1: generally speaking. I just want to I want to get
17:24
S1: your reflection, I suppose, on the immigration part of the budget,
17:27
S1: the budget reply, they they keep talking about mass migration.
17:31
S1: We also saw a story this week that they're going
17:33
S1: to say that people who are non-citizens shouldn't be able
17:37
S1: to access any welfare benefits. How do you think those
17:41
S1: immigration lines are going to land?
17:44
S2: I think they're more examples of the step change in
17:49
S2: the immigration debate in Australia, just in a short period
17:52
S2: of time After the last election. Andrew Bragg, who's the
17:55
S2: housing spokesman and a moderate Liberal senator from New South Wales,
17:59
S2: said that one of the lessons out of the Dutton
18:01
S2: administration was that the Liberal Party shouldn't be. I think
18:04
S2: his language was shouldn't be blaming migrants for things like
18:06
S2: the housing crisis. So he was uncomfortable at that time
18:10
S2: with directly linking the housing shortage to our really quite
18:14
S2: high levels of migration compared to the OECD, which is
18:17
S2: not untrue. To point out, Australia does have very high
18:20
S2: levels of migration over the last 20 years, not just
18:22
S2: in recent years, but as one nation has risen, as
18:27
S2: the right faction within the Liberal Party has increasingly influenced
18:30
S2: its policy making process, particularly since the leadership change from
18:35
S2: Sussan Ley. You've seen the party become much more comfortable
18:39
S2: elevating the issue of migration, as Pauline Hanson does. You're
18:43
S2: seeing policy making processes look to parts of Europe. Countries
18:47
S2: like Sweden, Denmark, Britain, in some respects are more openly
18:51
S2: talking about making the housing and citizenship process more difficult
18:58
S2: for new arrivals to make it that, you know, a
19:01
S2: person needs to take longer to go from permanent residency
19:04
S2: to citizenship to gain get access into benefits schemes, to
19:09
S2: crack down on the numbers of migration. And so you're
19:12
S2: seeing that become much more front and center in the
19:15
S2: coalition's language and agenda.
19:17
S1: Yeah. Okay. Speaking of immigration and relatedly, the advance of
19:22
S1: One Nation, we have to just check in on Fara, which,
19:25
S1: as we know, happened last weekend, although it seems like
19:27
S1: it was a really long time ago. It was a
19:29
S1: resounding result. It happened really quickly. David Farley, the One
19:32
S1: Nation candidate member elect, got 57.6% of the two party
19:37
S1: preferred vote. And then the runner up, the Independent, Michelle Milthorpe,
19:41
S1: got 42.4%. So neither the nationals nor the Liberals were
19:46
S1: even in the top two. They just weren't really in
19:48
S1: the race. How bad is this for the Liberal Party
19:51
S1: and for the coalition more broadly. I mean, how was
19:53
S1: it received within Liberal Party ranks?
19:55
S2: It was a pretty shocking night and a and a
19:58
S2: real blow to the morale of people in and around
20:01
S2: the coalition. Angus Taylor always knew he was going to
20:04
S2: lose this election. When Susan Lee quit, it was a
20:06
S2: horrendous time for the party polling at record lows, but nevertheless,
20:10
S2: the Liberal Party believed it would poll somewhere around the
20:12
S2: 17 to 18% region. They ended up around 12 or 13%,
20:16
S2: and the National Party didn't break into double digits. So
20:21
S2: tallied together, they weren't even as high as the independent
20:25
S2: who came in second place. The pictures from the night,
20:28
S2: I'm not sure if you were watching Jack were pretty
20:30
S2: stark as well. The the Liberal Party event was in
20:32
S2: this big community hall. There were about 25 people huddled
20:36
S2: around the speaker and the One Nation event, which was
20:38
S2: at a pub just down the road, was so full
20:41
S2: of energy. They were chanting Aussie, Aussie, Aussie and playing
20:44
S2: pub rock and it felt like a bit of a moment.
20:46
S2: Barnaby Joyce, who I was told wasn't drinking on the night,
20:50
S2: was just looked like a man who was full of
20:53
S2: energy and joy and was like a rock concert. So
20:57
S2: it did. It was is the first moment on the
20:59
S2: national stage where one nation was able to say, hey,
21:02
S2: this is real. We're on here. Because the South Australian
21:05
S2: election result was just that, a state election result. They're
21:08
S2: also just to counter that there were people in the
21:11
S2: Liberal Party are quite sober about their situation. They knew
21:14
S2: they'd go poorly. They're under no illusions about how difficult
21:17
S2: the path back will be. But it was just a
21:20
S2: moment that made people realise, wow, we actually need to
21:23
S2: start from scratch here, build up a really bold policy agenda.
21:26
S2: Act like a startup and be agile and move in
21:29
S2: directions that people don't expect. Which I think is why
21:32
S2: Angus Taylor will announce a fair bit of policy on
21:34
S2: Thursday night in his budget reply.
21:36
S1: Yeah, well, at least his budget reply has the ability
21:38
S1: to take take the shine off that fairer result. Cos
21:42
S1: I was listening to the other day, he's a former
21:44
S1: labor pollster who now runs, I think, and owns Redbridge Polling.
21:48
S1: He was talking about a scenario in which labor basically
21:51
S1: kind of owns the young metropolitan voter through, you know,
21:56
S1: policies like they've announced in the budget. And then the
21:59
S1: regional voters become the basically owned by one Nation. So
22:03
S1: the coalition falls away and one nation rises very much
22:07
S1: in the regions. The counter to that is Barnaby Joyce
22:10
S1: and other people saying that actually they're going to come
22:13
S1: for labor seats. So Barnaby Joyce, after that result in
22:17
S1: very explicitly said, we're coming for Western Sydney, and there
22:19
S1: could be some seats that they could pick off there potentially,
22:22
S1: or they could have a run in. What's your feeling
22:24
S1: on that? How worried should labor be about them coming
22:27
S1: at some of maybe those outer urban or suburban seats?
22:31
S2: Well, I mean, the lesson from the UK is that
22:34
S2: the populist right can eat into a weakened centre left party.
22:37
S2: Starmer is, um, looks like he might force the end
22:40
S2: of Keir Starmer's prime ministership over there. And that's that's
22:43
S2: occurred in different parts and in different elections across the Anglosphere.
22:48
S2: Anthony Albanese has succeeded in keeping Labor's vote in coalition
22:53
S2: pretty wide. As you say, labor dominates and the coalition
22:57
S2: has suffered horrendous losses, not just in the teal seats,
23:00
S2: which we talk about a lot, but middle suburbia. They've
23:03
S2: been pushed into really almost unwinnable positions in a bunch
23:07
S2: of seats where they previously had really healthy margins across
23:10
S2: the middle suburbs of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth. The only
23:14
S2: place they still hold those middle and outer suburban seats
23:17
S2: in significant numbers is Brisbane, where the LNP brand is strong,
23:21
S2: and that's off the back of younger voters. That's off
23:24
S2: the back of new migrants who are in the workforce,
23:27
S2: and second generation migrants in the workforce who don't necessarily
23:31
S2: share Labor's progressive social values, but see labor as modern,
23:35
S2: in touch with their material concerns and putting forward a
23:40
S2: brand of governing that is inoffensive and stable. Whereas the
23:45
S2: coalition has been, you know, not talking about the issues
23:49
S2: that people in the suburbs on child care, cost of
23:52
S2: living that resonate in recent years. So the One Nation
23:57
S2: threat will be significant to labor in some of its
24:00
S2: outer suburban seats. We don't know how one nation will
24:03
S2: go at a federal election yet. So, so much yet
24:05
S2: to be tested. But at some of these in some
24:08
S2: of these labor seats in the outer suburbs of Melbourne
24:10
S2: and Sydney, there already is a combined far right Christian
24:14
S2: party vote of up to 10% in some of these
24:17
S2: seats through various Micro-parties. One nation will hoover that up
24:21
S2: if they hoover up maybe half of the Liberal Party
24:23
S2: vote in these areas, they could be a threat. But yeah,
24:26
S2: and it's something labor is alive to.
24:28
S1: In Sydney and in Melbourne to I think a lot
24:30
S1: of those outer open seats or fringe seats have high
24:33
S1: migrant populations as well. And who knows how that might
24:36
S1: play with a one nation candidate, depending on how they
24:39
S1: present themselves. Pauline Hanson is now saying she's not anti-immigration,
24:42
S1: she's anti-mass migration, whatever that means. So the government's budget,
24:48
S1: the budget is basically an opportunity for the coalition to
24:50
S1: get some air time, as you say, to retreat to
24:53
S1: that very safe place for the Liberal Party, which is
24:56
S1: defending tax policy and being the party of lower taxes always,
25:00
S1: and the party of aspiration. So a lot is riding
25:02
S1: on the budget response for Angus Taylor, even though I
25:05
S1: would say not a lot of people in the general
25:08
S1: community kind of take that much notice of it. If
25:11
S1: he doesn't do well or if the criticisms on labor
25:14
S1: don't land, will Angus Taylor's leadership be in peril, do
25:17
S1: you think?
25:19
S2: Well, the basis for Angus Taylor's leadership was outlined on
25:21
S2: the morning of the leadership spill by his key ally,
25:24
S2: James Patterson, the senator. And his quote was, if we
25:27
S2: don't change, we'll die. And the number of people who
25:30
S2: have been flocking away from the Liberal Party meant that
25:32
S2: it was in an existential crisis and had to reconnect
25:34
S2: with its base. Angus Taylor has stopped the rot. Their
25:37
S2: polling numbers haven't continued to decrease. He's pushed up the
25:41
S2: primary vote a few percentage points. They're in the low
25:44
S2: 20s in a bunch of different polls now pushing up
25:47
S2: into the mid 20s. But One nation seems entrenched in
25:50
S2: that mid 20s primary vote. Higher 20s in some polls.
25:54
S2: And that's not a tenable, tenable position for the Liberal
25:56
S2: Party getting closer to the election. There'll be a Victorian
25:59
S2: election in November where Jess Wilson, the opposition leader, will
26:03
S2: be trying to get on top of quite a tired
26:05
S2: labor government down there. And I think that will be
26:07
S2: symbolic as to where the Liberal Party is at across
26:09
S2: the country. They'll then be a New South Wales election
26:13
S2: at the first part of next year in March, I believe.
26:16
S2: And if the Liberal Party is polling at its same
26:18
S2: level federally now as it is then, one Nation looks
26:21
S2: dominant and the Liberals aren't winning at a state level. Inevitably,
26:26
S2: questions will start to be asked about whether Angus Taylor
26:28
S2: has enough energy and is eye catching enough to take
26:31
S2: the party forward. He hasn't achieved much cut through yet,
26:34
S2: but there is a broad sense across both moderate and
26:37
S2: right faction parts of the federal parliamentary party that he
26:40
S2: deserves a chance, that he's trying to bring stability and
26:43
S2: unity to the show, that he's had an okay but
26:46
S2: not hugely inspiring start, and that time is needed.
26:49
S1: Yeah. So they're giving him clear air at least, which
26:52
S1: is more than his predecessor got. Paul, that's been a
26:55
S1: fascinating chat, as always. And next week, I think we're
26:58
S1: going to have former opposition leader Bill shorten on. And
27:00
S1: hopefully we'll have a bit more sense of how the
27:03
S1: government is selling its budget and how successful the coalition
27:06
S1: is able to be in attacking the budget, basically, and
27:09
S1: all the measures. So have fun. Until then, stay cool
27:13
S1: and I'll see you next week.
27:14
S2: See you next week.
27:19
S1: You can read all of our political news on our website,
27:22
S1: si.com.au and smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong
27:27
S1: with help from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills,
27:31
S1: and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick.
27:35
S1: Before you go, please follow Inside Politics and leave a
27:38
S1: review for us on Apple or Spotify. I'm Jacqueline Maley,
27:41
S1: thank you for listening.