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Superannuation and the One Nation press conference that had everyone watching · Inside Politics

0:01
S1: I'm Stephanie Peatling, filling in for Jacqueline Maley, and you're
0:05
S1: listening to Inside Politics from the Age and The Sydney
0:07
S1: Morning Herald. Today, I'm going to talk to two of
0:10
S1: our reporters to try and join the dots between two
0:13
S1: seemingly very different stories. The fight over superannuation, which has
0:17
S1: been a very big part of the federal political discussion
0:20
S1: this week and the incredibly colourful past of One Nation's
0:23
S1: leader in Victoria, Warren Pickering. Joining me in Canberra is
0:27
S1: senior economics correspondent Shane Wright. And on the line from
0:30
S1: Melbourne is the age of state political editor and the
0:33
S1: man with one of the best bylines in the business,
0:35
S1: Chip Le Grand. Let's get started, gentleman Shane. The week
0:40
S1: in Canberra for you and I began in a bit
0:42
S1: of a flurry on Monday with a press conference with
0:44
S1: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and her XO, Barnaby Joyce.
0:48
S1: One Nation press conferences are few and far between, and
0:52
S1: those that have a policy announcement are even rarer still.
0:55
S1: Can you tell us what they announced?
0:57
S2: Rare as hen's teeth, I would have to use a
1:00
S2: bit of a colloquialism that would concern the younger reporters
1:03
S2: in our office, who would have no idea what I'm
1:05
S2: talking about, which is par for course. Yeah, this one
1:09
S2: is interesting because the super policy that was announced is tapping,
1:14
S2: trying to tap into the concern about people that most
1:17
S2: people are experiencing, which is cost of living.
1:19
S3: Relieving the pain from Australians to access their superannuation, meaning
1:26
S3: moving forward to drop it from 12% to 9%. Now,
1:32
S3: the superannuation will continue to be put into the super
1:36
S3: fund by the employer, and those people that are working
1:42
S3: are renters or paying a mortgage will, by choice, can
1:47
S3: apply to their superannuation fund to withdraw up to 3%
1:52
S3: one quarter of their superannuation moving forward. So that's not anything.
1:57
S2: It's only available to those who have, uh, are Renters
2:01
S2: or are buying a home. So that excludes about a
2:04
S2: third of the population. And it was couched as this
2:08
S2: is cost of living, but there's no restriction as to
2:12
S2: what you can do with the money or prove that
2:14
S2: you have are in some sort of financial situation. So
2:19
S2: there are current rules and laws around this. And about
2:23
S2: 66 to 70 000 people a year access their super
2:27
S2: for the biggest one is for people who may be
2:30
S2: towards end of life. Some certain medical procedures qualify. Uh,
2:35
S2: if you're about to lose your home, there are avenues
2:39
S2: to use that. But it also goes to the fact
2:41
S2: that so few people get into that position. That's why
2:43
S2: the relative number is closer to 30 million superannuation accounts
2:47
S2: in the country and 66,000 people a year. Accessing this
2:51
S2: scheme tells you one how difficult it is, and two, that, uh,
2:57
S2: the tightness of that scheme is really aimed at making
3:00
S2: sure that superannuation continues to be held for retirement.
3:04
S1: Yeah, that that scheme that's in place is an interesting one,
3:07
S1: isn't it? Not very many people know about it, but
3:10
S1: it sounds from what our previous reporting in that area,
3:13
S1: that it is very tightly monitored in terms of the
3:15
S1: evidence that you need to provide in terms of being
3:17
S1: able to get access to that money.
3:19
S2: That's exactly right. And there are reasons for this. And
3:23
S2: we know and you and I were here, Stephanie, when
3:26
S2: this happened. What happens when people get unfettered access to super.
3:31
S2: And this happened during Covid when the Morrison government said, right,
3:34
S2: you can take up to $20,000 out of your super.
3:38
S2: It ended up being the second biggest stimulus measure that
3:42
S2: came out of Covid. And about $42 billion fled out
3:48
S2: into the economy. A large amount of that was just
3:51
S2: taken out of ATMs as cash, and it was because
3:55
S2: people got access to their super. And it actually contributed
3:58
S2: to the inflation problem that we would have later on.
4:01
S2: And so this has been one of my arguments supra
4:03
S2: was set up to, because people are horrendous at making
4:06
S2: long term decisions. Retirement is a long term decision. So
4:10
S2: superannuation was created as a lock box. This is opening
4:13
S2: that box. And I think it was Chris Richardson who
4:17
S2: suggested if if seven there's 7 million people who probably
4:20
S2: qualify for this, if you if they took out $44
4:24
S2: a week, that's $26 billion. That's 4 or 5 interest
4:28
S2: rate rises that you've just condemned yourself to. One fantastic policy.
4:33
S1: One nation, one nation is on to something, though, in
4:36
S1: terms of what we might call the vibe of it though, right?
4:38
S1: Like we've seen for many years now, increasing concerns about
4:43
S1: the price of housing younger people, in particular, those who
4:47
S1: might be younger than Shane and Chip, and I have
4:49
S1: more of an eye on a property market entry than
4:52
S1: they do on what their retirement might look like. And
4:55
S1: One Nation is tapping into that, right? Like, there is
4:57
S1: genuine concern in the community and people are looking at
5:01
S1: this lump of money that is supposedly for the the
5:05
S1: later years of their life, but they want to know
5:07
S1: why they can't put it to productive use now, or
5:10
S1: what they think is productive use now.
5:12
S2: Oh, don't get me started with a buying. Buying a
5:15
S2: house is productive.
5:16
S1: I think I'm going to go for what we might
5:18
S1: call in the trade. A leading question here, Shane. But
5:21
S1: what's so wrong about wanting to use your money that
5:24
S1: you can't get access to now to buy a big.
5:27
S1: What people would consider their biggest asset and the biggest
5:30
S1: purchase in their life now. Particularly if you're someone in
5:33
S1: their 20s and 30s who can't see how they're going
5:36
S1: to be able to ever get into the property market.
5:38
S2: Yeah. And I absolutely get that as someone who's got
5:41
S2: two kids going. These kids are going to they'll come
5:44
S2: to the bank of mum and dad to get money
5:47
S2: to get to buy a property, because we have completely
5:50
S2: stuffed up the housing policy in this country for the
5:52
S2: last two decades. But that is a super series of
5:55
S2: podcasts that we could debate that on. And I think
5:59
S2: part of it, part of it is, yeah, right. Just
6:01
S2: give me money and some money now, and I'll be
6:06
S2: able to buy a house. And you and I go
6:08
S2: off to the auction. We've both got an extra ten,
6:11
S2: $15,000 in our pockets. What have we just done? We'll
6:14
S2: outbid each other until we push up the price of housing.
6:17
S2: And one of the reasons that house prices went up
6:20
S2: so much during Covid, and people talking about, oh, we're
6:24
S2: in negative equity, house prices are falling. The biggest increase
6:27
S2: in house prices occurred when this scheme started. Cash rate
6:32
S2: fell to 0.1, which is the main contributor. But you
6:36
S2: had a you had all these programs handing out money
6:39
S2: to first home buyers as well. Like we talk about
6:41
S2: inflation a lot. And if people have money, if governments spend,
6:46
S2: that's terrible. That's inflationary. If people spend. It is also inflationary.
6:51
S2: There's the inflation. Dragon doesn't care who's spending the money.
6:56
S2: And in this case it would be spent. So the.
6:59
S2: That person might get into a house. They might have
7:01
S2: just bit up the house price and just given a
7:04
S2: great big handball of money over to the older people
7:07
S2: who might be owning that price. You've just done an
7:08
S2: intergenerational wealth transfer between poor young people to richer Xers
7:14
S2: and Boomers. Again, great policy work.
7:18
S1: It might look like I'm taking a significant detour here,
7:21
S1: but bear with me, listeners, because I'd like to bring
7:23
S1: Chip in at this point. Chips week was also derailed
7:26
S1: by what he referred to in a piece earlier this
7:28
S1: week as, quote unquote, Team Orange, but in a very
7:31
S1: different way to the way that Shane and mine's week
7:34
S1: played out. Chip, what was going on with One Nation
7:36
S1: down in Victoria?
7:38
S4: Well, I think we need a bit of a whiplash
7:41
S4: warning here for listeners because we are about to change gears.
7:44
S4: So so what we've learned in recent days was that
7:48
S4: Warren Pickering, who's the One Nation leader in Victoria, is
7:53
S4: trying to get into Parliament. And he's successful. He would
7:56
S4: lead the party and in in a crazy world where
7:58
S4: they got the most seats, he would actually be the
8:00
S4: premier of this state. So what we learned is that
8:02
S4: when he was in his in his 20s or even
8:05
S4: early in that when he was when he was a teenager,
8:08
S4: he the fellow that he worked for as a brickie,
8:11
S4: he died. Warren shacked up with his widow. Warren became
8:16
S4: a habitual drug user. So he was using speed and, um,
8:21
S4: other amphetamines. Smoking dope while also trying to raise children
8:27
S4: that she had from the previous marriage. They had one
8:30
S4: of their own. That family life was, put simply, a
8:34
S4: train wreck. It ended in a very acrimonious estrangement. And
8:39
S4: at some point in his own telling, he got off
8:41
S4: the gear. He joined the army. He straightened his life out. Now,
8:45
S4: this was exposed in a series of reports by the
8:48
S4: Australian newspaper, and I should say it was done by
8:51
S4: a very good reporter of theirs, Jamie Walker, who's been
8:54
S4: doing this for a really long time based in Brisbane,
8:56
S4: did everything you'd expect a journalist to do, sat down
8:59
S4: and talked at her with length, found some supporting material,
9:03
S4: found a corroborating witness, went to Warren picking with all
9:07
S4: of this gave them every opportunity to respond. He denied it.
9:10
S4: They published. And then we had a press conference on
9:13
S4: Tuesday where Warren Pickering stood up and admitted that, in fact,
9:18
S4: a lot of it's true that he was a drug user,
9:20
S4: that he was confused about his sexuality.
9:23
S5: I've never made the suggestion that I'm any type of angel. Uh,
9:27
S5: so to assume that I would be is is an
9:30
S5: absolute mistake. I've never lied, and I've done nothing but
9:35
S5: be truthful in the responses that we have given given
9:39
S5: to the Australian over the last few days.
9:42
S4: As I described, it was like a, a sort of
9:44
S4: a watching a Jerry Springer episode. Only the difference is
9:48
S4: that it had a kind of a warm ending to it. Where, where.
9:52
S4: So normally in any other political party, if a leader
9:57
S4: had had been revealed to have this type of a history.
10:01
S4: I mean, they'd just about be done, right? They, they,
10:03
S4: they couldn't possibly lead the party into an election. One nation, again,
10:07
S4: has just reminded us what a different beast it is,
10:10
S4: where in a lot of ways, this is the best
10:12
S4: day that they'd probably had in Victoria, where by the
10:16
S4: end of it. And I put myself in this category,
10:18
S4: like people watching this thing had a lot of sympathy
10:20
S4: for Warren Pickering.
10:22
S1: It was a pretty amazing performance.
10:24
S4: He leant into all these, all the flaws, all the
10:27
S4: things that had gone wrong in his life. And of course,
10:29
S4: this speaks directly to One Nation supporters, One Nation voters,
10:36
S4: many of whom feel like at some point the system's
10:40
S4: been against them. They've been screwed over by something or someone.
10:44
S4: They empathise with this. He's speaking to them directly and
10:47
S4: and this. And it just got me thinking about how
10:50
S4: our approach to news and in some ways, our news
10:54
S4: judgment and what we think is, is fair game. We're
10:59
S4: just on a different wavelength to to people who are
11:02
S4: really buying into the One Nation narrative and what they
11:06
S4: stand for. And it's a real challenge for us if we're,
11:07
S4: as we're heading into a Victorian election here, where depending
11:10
S4: on the poll, One Nation is likely to get somewhere
11:13
S4: between 20 and 25% of the vote. They could they'll
11:16
S4: probably have the the balance of power in the upper house.
11:19
S4: They'll end up picking up some lower house seats. They're
11:22
S4: going to be a serious factor in the next Parliament,
11:26
S4: and we're still getting our heads around how to really
11:28
S4: approach the how to report them.
11:30
S1: Mhm. It's a fascinating challenge for those of us who've
11:33
S1: been around in politics for a really long time. As
11:36
S1: you say, Chip, once upon a time, we might have
11:38
S1: not considered this to be capital N news, but now
11:42
S1: it is, and we do really grapple with it. What
11:44
S1: are the kind of ethics of it from your perspective
11:47
S1: of where that line is drawn about politicians private lives?
11:52
S4: So I mean, the, the, the conduct of the private
11:55
S4: conduct of politicians still matters if it if it says
11:59
S4: something about their character and so you can't sidestep that.
12:04
S4: But I think in terms of how we we report this,
12:07
S4: it shows that you're kind of in some personal a
12:11
S4: personal life still belongs to that person. And ideally, the
12:14
S4: best way for this to have been reported is if
12:17
S4: from the start, when the Australian started looking into this
12:21
S4: and started putting in questions to Warren Pickering, rather than
12:24
S4: just deny it. He had actually engaged with that newspaper.
12:28
S4: And then they perhaps they could have told a story
12:31
S4: in a more rounded way that that took into account
12:35
S4: his perspective. As it was. It was all from the
12:37
S4: perspective of his former wife. I mean, it's it's it's
12:43
S4: awful stuff. But but it sort of has in some
12:45
S4: ways it has to come from the person it has.
12:47
S4: They have to be in charge or in some control of,
12:51
S4: of telling what it is that they've lived through. I
12:54
S4: think that's in some ways that's, that's the kind of the,
12:58
S4: the standard that we're all trying to, to meet now
13:00
S4: that you have to give people an opportunity to tell
13:04
S4: it in their words, rather than us feeling like it's
13:08
S4: it's all just because they're in politics. Everything's fair game.
13:11
S1: Mhm. Mhm. Now, while superannuation and lets politely call them
13:17
S1: untraditional political candidates might not seem to have much to
13:21
S1: do with one another, they really do go to one
13:23
S1: nation's uncanny ability at the moment to be able to
13:26
S1: hijack the the national debate and the agenda. How much
13:29
S1: strategy is there, Shane, and how much do you think
13:31
S1: is plain old. Good luck.
13:34
S2: I'll never discount luck in politics. Was it a grand
13:39
S2: strategy for the For One Nation to outline its superannuation
13:43
S2: policy this week? Given the. The hares around like. There's
13:47
S2: no detail. There is absolutely.
13:50
S1: Policy.
13:50
S2: Right. It's just about three powers. And when pressed this
13:53
S2: week on whether the inflationary impact. Pauline Hanson's one word
13:58
S2: answer was neutral. Now, I think that's a color palette
14:02
S2: rather than a formal costing of this policy, like so
14:07
S2: there's so little detail. So whether it was a grand
14:10
S2: strategy to get one nation into the, uh, the, the
14:15
S2: polling like this is an argument that the Liberal Party
14:19
S2: ran about Kevin Rudd many, many years ago in 0607,
14:23
S2: that he would announce things to coincide with when Newspoll
14:28
S2: was in the field. And so it was apparently this
14:32
S2: grand strategy. It wasn't a grand strategy. It was a
14:35
S2: fair bit of luck. But you can see the influence
14:38
S2: of Barnaby Joyce a bit in this, in trying to
14:41
S2: push the policy side of One Nation to try and
14:45
S2: give them a bit more ballast to argue points rather
14:49
S2: than just be critical, critical.
14:51
S1: Critical party of grievance.
14:52
S2: The party of grievance. Like I'd be interested from like from, uh,
14:56
S2: chips point of view. Like I think it was Andrew
14:58
S2: Clennell on Sky this week. Just saying, if Ben Carroll
15:02
S2: had got up and we'd revealed this about his past life,
15:06
S2: there is no chance he would be the Victorian Premier.
15:08
S2: Does Warren Pickering look like a Premier of Victoria? Like,
15:13
S2: apart from the fact that you felt warm and sad
15:16
S2: for him, does that make him a premier? Does that
15:18
S2: make him the person who could run the second largest economy,
15:22
S2: the most the second most populous state in the country? Well, what.
15:25
S1: Do you think about that?
15:26
S4: Yeah. Well, this is okay. So this is the but
15:28
S4: in some ways this is the thread, right? I mean,
15:30
S4: people still probably wondering why we're talking about these two
15:33
S4: different things, but this is the thread that connects them,
15:35
S4: which is that, um, and the reason that, you know,
15:38
S4: Shane and I are both on this program, apart from
15:40
S4: our shared love of 1980s cultural reference. That's right. The
15:42
S4: reason we're talking about these two things is because the
15:45
S4: details just don't matter for one nation in a way
15:50
S4: that that they do for other political parties, like the
15:52
S4: fact they were able to roll out this superannuation without
15:55
S4: having any sense of what the the knock on implications
15:58
S4: were going to be to the to the the total
16:01
S4: savings or the inflationary impact, whatever it is, none of
16:05
S4: it even they even bother to do the sums. Whereas
16:08
S4: and and here with Pickering, there are so many holes in, in,
16:13
S4: in a lot of what he said in his press conference,
16:16
S4: mainly about the timeline of how it affects to his
16:19
S4: service in the military, but also why he lied about
16:23
S4: this to the, the to the journalist Jamie Walker, rather
16:27
S4: than just.
16:28
S1: Coming clean.
16:29
S4: Honest about what had happened from the in the first,
16:31
S4: in the first. But of course, you know, if from
16:33
S4: a one nation point of view, lying to a journalist
16:35
S4: isn't even lying. I don't even think we count in
16:38
S4: that sense. It's not a it's not a proper lie.
16:39
S4: I mean, we're just journos. I mean, I think we
16:41
S4: all lie. So this is this is where the whole
16:43
S4: thing is kind of inside out in terms of trying
16:46
S4: to get to why it is that, that people are
16:49
S4: not just attracted to one nation, but forgive all, all
16:53
S4: the stuff that's missing from one nation that you normally
16:55
S4: associate with a, with a, a serious political party. So
16:59
S4: in Victoria, do people even think of Warren Pickering as
17:04
S4: a prospective premier? I don't think so. If you ask
17:07
S4: most One Nation voters, they probably think the Pauline Hanson
17:10
S4: could be the next premier of Victoria. I mean, this
17:13
S4: isn't it's not some sort of a linear thing in
17:15
S4: terms of how they. And I'm not saying they're all,
17:18
S4: you know, ill informed. It's just that they're not looking
17:21
S4: at it that way. It is still so much of
17:23
S4: a vibe that we're dealing with here. And that's why
17:28
S4: for the parties trying to counter One Nation, it is
17:31
S4: still really a matter of trying to grasp smoke.
17:34
S1: Shane. I guess one of the the things that the
17:37
S1: One Nation super policy really highlighted was, again, how much
17:41
S1: they have an ability to send the coalition at a
17:43
S1: federal level into an absolute tailspin. Being able to access
17:47
S1: your money early from super for housing was, of course,
17:50
S1: a big deal policy offering from Scott Morrison heading into
17:56
S1: an election two cycles ago and the coalition in the
17:59
S1: last cycle. call that policy still remains kind of on
18:02
S1: the book, although a little bit under review in their
18:04
S1: interminable review of policy processes that are going through. But again,
18:09
S1: you saw that they were just unable to come back
18:11
S1: and have a sufficient answer to that. Why is the
18:14
S1: coalition so ill equipped to be able to argue back
18:17
S1: on even something that is pretty clear cut for them,
18:20
S1: which is we had that policy first.
18:23
S2: Um, part of it is because they are a traditional
18:27
S2: party as opposed to like the advantage for One Nation
18:31
S2: for Pauline Hanson is that it's Pauline Hanson and Barnaby
18:33
S2: Joyce and James Ashby like it in terms of a
18:37
S2: flat management, uh, arrangement for a party. You can't go.
18:40
S2: You can't beat it. This goes to Chip's point, like
18:43
S2: it's the vibe as opposed to the absolute detail, but
18:48
S2: a like Tim Wilson, think who's thinking I will be
18:52
S2: the next treasurer? Does have to think about that. He
18:56
S2: has to think about say what's going on in the
18:59
S2: US bond market. What's going on in the Australian bond market?
19:03
S2: Barnaby Joyce tells Sarah Ferguson I'm not Jesus Christ. Okay,
19:07
S2: that's that wasn't the question, Barnaby. But that's the get
19:11
S2: out of jail free card. So that's part of it.
19:13
S2: The other thing within the Liberal Party itself, there is
19:16
S2: a split over this super for housing policy, because there
19:22
S2: are those who say, right, we need people like having
19:26
S2: a home is so important to a person's future, like
19:30
S2: future financial situation, which is absolutely true. However, there's the
19:34
S2: other saying, you go down this path, you are just
19:36
S2: going to push up house prices, and we're going to
19:39
S2: be back in this path. And at the moment, if
19:41
S2: you're if you're thinking about this, you go right there.
19:43
S2: Policy at the moment is to wind back the to
19:46
S2: get rid of the capital gains tax changes from the
19:48
S2: government and the negative gearing changes which both both the government,
19:54
S2: the opposition are saying that's driving down house prices. You
19:57
S2: put in super. There's your three points. What happens post-election.
20:01
S2: You do all that at once, you're going to have
20:02
S2: another increase in house prices, no matter what else is
20:06
S2: going on in the world. So that that's the debate
20:08
S2: that's going on within the Liberal Party about their policy
20:11
S2: space at the moment.
20:13
S1: Shane and I are probably just under two years away
20:16
S1: from being able to see how this plays out at
20:18
S1: a federal level. But, Chip, I counted this in my
20:20
S1: diary yesterday. You've got 11 weeks until the state poll.
20:24
S1: Let's wind up with a check in from you on
20:26
S1: how you think the grievance levels are in Victoria among people,
20:29
S1: and how that's going to play out.
20:32
S4: Oh, the grievance levels. How do you measure that? Do
20:34
S4: you count the potholes? What's the what's the what's the best.
20:37
S1: I think it's pretty personal, isn't it.
20:40
S4: Um, look, I think just to touch on what Shane
20:43
S4: was saying there, I mean, the fascinating thing for Victoria
20:47
S4: is that it goes from theory to actual. So after
20:51
S4: the after the election, as I said, one nation will
20:53
S4: probably have the balance of power in the upper house.
20:55
S4: I mean, almost certainly the way that the way things
20:57
S4: are going to fall here, they may be in a
21:01
S4: balance of power situation in the lower house. Either way,
21:04
S4: they'll have some representation in what's likely to be most
21:08
S4: likely to be a to be a hung parliament. They're
21:11
S4: going to be a thing, and they're going to have
21:13
S4: to make decisions about legislation and other things. So it goes.
21:19
S4: They go from being about the vibe to actually making
21:24
S4: decisions that impact on people. And, and that's why, you know,
21:28
S4: we keep hearing that there's some there's some people, particularly
21:32
S4: in the federal Labor Party who wouldn't be entirely unhappy
21:35
S4: to see a change of government here, particularly in a
21:37
S4: situation where the coalition has to rely on, um, a
21:42
S4: handful of one Nation MPs for for supply and confidence.
21:46
S4: That wouldn't be a terrible outcome for for federal labor
21:49
S4: looking ahead at the next federal election, because we will
21:53
S4: just see how it goes. And and we'll be able
21:55
S4: to make a judgement in about about how it works
21:58
S4: in reality, Rather than just this kind of hypothetical of
22:02
S4: what might happen.
22:04
S1: That's a brave new world that you're considering there, Chip.
22:06
S1: And I'm one that the brave state of Victoria will
22:09
S1: take on, I think. Let's leave that there for today.
22:13
S1: Thanks very much for both of you for your time today.
22:15
S2: Thank you. Young Stephanie.
22:17
S4: Thank you.
22:23
S1: You can read all of our political news on our websites,
22:26
S1: theage.com.au or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong
22:32
S1: with help from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills,
22:36
S1: and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick.
22:40
S1: Before you go, follow Inside Politics and leave a review
22:44
S1: for us on Apple or Spotify. I'm Stephanie Peatling, thanks
22:47
S1: for listening.