Latest / Inside Politics / Is the PM at risk of "Albo derangement syndrome"?

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Is the PM at risk of "Albo derangement syndrome"? · Inside Politics

0:00
S1: Hi, I'm Jacqueline Maley. Welcome to Inside Politics from the
0:03
S1: newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. And
0:07
S1: welcome back to the show, to Paul Satchell, our national
0:10
S1: political correspondent. We actually haven't been together for a while. Paul,
0:13
S1: the band's back together. Finally. It's been weeks, months.
0:16
S2: It's been a huge delay. Yeah, it weeks a long
0:19
S2: time in politics. Two months is an eon.
0:22
S1: Yes. And there's so much to talk about this week.
0:24
S1: First of all, I want to ask you about an
0:26
S1: interesting story that you had about a rift between the
0:29
S1: nationals and the Liberals. And this is not something that
0:32
S1: we've really heard about at all since the couple of
0:35
S1: big bust ups that the coalition partners had under the
0:37
S1: leadership of Sussan Ley, which were very public, and from
0:40
S1: what I could tell, forgive me for editorializing. Rather pointless.
0:44
S1: What's going on now between the libs and the Nats?
0:46
S1: What are the fault lines of their dispute?
0:49
S2: Well, I think you're right. Those previous splits were pointless,
0:52
S2: but the reason they occurred is because there was a
0:55
S2: huge level of animus and mistrust between the two leaders
0:59
S2: at the time being Susan Lee and David Littleproud. Both
1:02
S2: of them had minimal authority in their party rooms and
1:05
S2: wanted to have fights to entrench their positions. And the
1:08
S2: difference now is that Matt Canavan, the new Nats leader,
1:10
S2: and Angus Taylor both have much more authority in their
1:13
S2: party rooms but crucially, have quite a lot of respect
1:16
S2: for one another and want to keep the show together.
1:19
S2: Despite that though, Matt Canavan is in an existential crisis
1:23
S2: in the National Party. I mean, the the Liberal Party
1:25
S2: is also having a pretty torrid time in dealing with
1:28
S2: One Nation, and it has a rocky future if things
1:30
S2: don't improve. But the nationals really do face a wipeout
1:34
S2: in the regions if things don't change. And so for
1:36
S2: that reason, you're seeing Matt Canavan push out onto the
1:39
S2: right flank really forcefully and aggressively to counter Pauline Hanson.
1:44
S2: This is a person who spent years as a backbench
1:47
S2: maverick setting the agenda on populist right issues, but now
1:51
S2: he's trying to lead a party and follow due process.
1:54
S2: And just on a few issues, you're starting to see
1:55
S2: some cracks emerge on the EU free trade deal. Matt Canavan,
1:59
S2: who supports tariffs and is a more protectionist figure than
2:02
S2: Angus Taylor and many in the Liberal Party, went out
2:05
S2: really early and said the EU FTA that Labour has
2:07
S2: proposed is a dud deal. And, uh, controversially, a couple
2:11
S2: of weeks ago declared the Liberal Party's position and said
2:14
S2: the Liberal Party was opposed to it. I was sitting
2:16
S2: with the shadow minister when that story dropped in the
2:18
S2: Australian at about 9:00. I was having a drink and
2:21
S2: they said, what the hell, we have not approved this.
2:24
S2: And this created a little mini crisis. Uh, Taylor has
2:27
S2: tried to defuse it, and he agrees with Canavan's criticisms
2:31
S2: of the deal, but it has exposed this tension where
2:34
S2: Canavan feels the need to push out to the right early.
2:37
S2: That's locking the Liberal Party into positions they may not
2:39
S2: be fully comfortable with. And so there are just some
2:42
S2: cracks starting to emerge. The other issue being AI.
2:45
S1: Yeah. Okay. And on AI, it looks like the Nats
2:48
S1: are moving towards a sort of not exactly an anti
2:51
S1: AI position, but an anti data centre position, which is
2:54
S1: kind of fair enough because a lot of the data
2:56
S1: centers proposed are in regional and rural electorates.
3:00
S2: Yeah. That's right. And I was reading a good piece
3:03
S2: in The Economist about the midterms and how data centers
3:07
S2: are influencing influencing races there. There's some great data on, uh,
3:11
S2: the closer a voter, a Republican voter is to a
3:14
S2: data center, the more likely they are to be drifting
3:17
S2: away from Donald Trump, who's been a really strong supporter
3:20
S2: of AI and says that they're needed in America to
3:23
S2: counter Chinese tech dominance. But voters aren't liking them because
3:27
S2: they make a lot of noise. They're using too much
3:29
S2: water and energy in the US because we're not strong
3:31
S2: guardrails put around them. And you're just starting to see
3:34
S2: signs of that among conservatives in Australia. David Littleproud, the
3:38
S2: former Nats leader who we just mentioned, has a $32
3:41
S2: billion data center planned in his huge electorate of Maranoa,
3:45
S2: which is about the size of Victoria. Uh, and he
3:48
S2: has come out and become quite skeptical on that data
3:50
S2: center which anthropic wants to use. Garth Hamilton, another conservative
3:54
S2: LNP member who's in the seat next door, is fully
3:57
S2: opposed to it and is calling for a moratorium. And
4:01
S2: what this displays is that you're starting to see conservatives
4:05
S2: and people on the left and the Greens start to
4:07
S2: animate pretty strongly against AI data centres and say, hey,
4:10
S2: what is the benefit here? We understand there's a national
4:13
S2: security imperative. We understand there's a long term economic imperative.
4:17
S2: But when you're trying to counter One Nation, if you're
4:19
S2: a nationals MP who will no doubt start to piggyback
4:23
S2: off local concerns about data centres and portray them as
4:27
S2: a kind of factory of the elites in our community,
4:31
S2: you're starting to see LNP and Nats members push out
4:34
S2: in that direction, which makes it more difficult for the
4:36
S2: Liberal and Labour parties and their two leaders to work
4:39
S2: together to come to a kind of national bipartisan consensus
4:42
S2: on AI.
4:43
S1: Yeah, which is what they sort of look like they
4:45
S1: want to do. I mean, and I think it's also
4:48
S1: a problem for the government, because the government obviously has
4:50
S1: fairly low levels of trust in the electorate at the moment,
4:53
S1: and at the same time, they have low levels of trust.
4:55
S1: They're like, trust us. You know, the big AI companies, um,
4:59
S1: are going to be great and going to deliver these
5:01
S1: huge benefits to the economy. Well, they're not delivering those
5:04
S1: benefits to the economy now. In fact, it looks like
5:06
S1: they're adding kind of inflation to the economy, the building
5:09
S1: of data centers. And it's very, very intangible and amorphous.
5:13
S1: This idea that the AI data centers are somehow going
5:15
S1: to contribute or benefit ordinary Australians going about their business.
5:21
S2: However, we'd have no GDP growth without them at the moment.
5:24
S2: So there's there's different there's different threads here and so
5:27
S2: many clashing imperatives.
5:29
S1: Yeah. And it's not something we can sort of shut
5:31
S1: out or turn our back on. I don't think we've
5:33
S1: got to deal with it somehow. There's also been reports
5:35
S1: that Matt Canavan might move to the lower house because
5:38
S1: Michelle Landry, who's the member for Capricornia in northern Queensland,
5:41
S1: she's retiring at the next election. So that would open
5:44
S1: up that seat, which is in Matt Canavan's kind of backyard. Uh,
5:48
S1: what how would that change the dynamic between the coalition partners.
5:52
S2: Well, I suspect Canavan has not been clear on whether
5:55
S2: he will make this move. He's been hinting at it,
5:57
S2: but it's been widely speculated on for more than a year.
6:00
S2: Matt Canavan lives in the area around Rockhampton. He's got
6:04
S2: a strong local profile. He's worked the branches and communities
6:08
S2: there for a long time, and it's quite unusual for
6:11
S2: any major party leader to be in the Senate where
6:14
S2: Matt Canavan currently sits. And to really try and get
6:19
S2: the Nats back into the game and develop a bigger
6:21
S2: national profile, which the party desperately needs to do, it
6:25
S2: would make sense for Canavan to switch to the lower house.
6:28
S2: There's been speculation that A that a prominent One Nation
6:30
S2: member could run in that seat, such as James Ashby,
6:33
S2: who's the kind of consiglieri of Pauline Hanson who also
6:37
S2: lives in the area. Ashby's been a bit coy about
6:39
S2: whether he'll do that. I suspect he won't want to
6:41
S2: take the risk because he's making lots of money running
6:43
S2: One Nation and setting up their strategy behind the scenes
6:47
S2: in their head office. But shifting to the the lower
6:49
S2: house would give Canavan a national profile and draw a
6:52
S2: lot of attention to the One Nation versus nationals contest.
6:57
S2: It's quite hard for any coalition member to kind of
6:59
S2: permeate the algorithm at the moment, but if Canavan tries
7:02
S2: to run in the lower house, creates this big showdown
7:05
S2: with a One Nation member, it will put the issue
7:08
S2: in lights, and he's a pretty skilled performer, Canavan, so
7:11
S2: I suspect he will make that move.
7:12
S1: Yeah, I think he's a compelling politician, but I don't
7:16
S1: I would not say that he's cut through or particularly
7:18
S1: made a mark in the broader community as nationals leader,
7:22
S1: because there's just been so much focus on focus on
7:24
S1: One Nation. And if Angus Taylor has failed to cut
7:27
S1: through or struggle to cut through, then Matt Canavan even
7:30
S1: more so. So, as you say, maybe a move to
7:32
S1: the lower house will will benefit him, give him a
7:34
S1: higher profile. I want to move from the the country
7:38
S1: from northern Queensland to the heart of Sydney's inner west.
7:41
S1: I think you know where I'm going with this. The
7:43
S1: Prime Minister has tied himself up in knots this week
7:46
S1: over his local club, the Marrickville Golf Club. And I
7:51
S1: know this club. I've been to this club. It's on
7:54
S1: a beautiful part of the cooks River. He has basically
7:57
S1: been accused of misleading Parliament over it because he talked
8:00
S1: about this $6 million federal grant, which went through sort
8:04
S1: of no meritorious or no merit based process at all.
8:07
S1: And he basically said it was to do sewage works
8:11
S1: on the golf club.
8:13
S3: When it rains, raw sewage goes into the river. We're
8:18
S3: funding it, we're fixing it. That's what good governments do.
8:22
S1: And it turns out that wasn't the case at all.
8:25
S1: In Senate estimates, it emerged this week that the federal
8:27
S1: grant money was not for the sewage works that was
8:29
S1: actually covered by a separate state government grant.
8:31
S4: The scope of the project. Did it include sewerage works
8:36
S4: or not? Sewerage works. It does not include sewerage work.
8:40
S1: What's gone on here is the Prime Minister badly briefed,
8:43
S1: or did he deliberately mislead people?
8:45
S2: Well, since they've started to receive scrutiny on this grant, Jack,
8:49
S2: they have been arguing that there is this meritorious element
8:54
S2: of the the $6 million in funding, which is to
8:56
S2: fix the sewerage works around the golf club. I might
8:59
S2: just go into the history just to highlight the kind
9:02
S2: of absurdity of this debate. Back in the coalition era,
9:06
S2: as people will remember, Bridget McKenzie, the nationals minister, was
9:10
S2: dropped from cabinet because she used a competitive, tender process,
9:14
S2: which is meant to be open up to all different
9:16
S2: kinds of clubs, and then you pick the most meritorious
9:19
S2: grant and you give it to them. She was accused
9:21
S2: of favouring a gun club that she had a personal
9:24
S2: link to, and this created a huge scandal about these grants.
9:27
S2: There were lots of calls to stop them being done
9:29
S2: in this way and to make them fairer, to get
9:31
S2: around this, and to not use competitive open grants to
9:34
S2: favour their political friends. Labor uses a different process through
9:38
S2: election promises, to fund hundreds of millions of dollars of
9:41
S2: similar grants, and election commitments are not merit based. They
9:46
S2: effectively are. Each candidate and Labor Party head office is
9:49
S2: involved in this. Picks a golf club or school or
9:52
S2: whatever it is in their seat and they promise money
9:55
S2: and if they win the election, they make the funding.
9:58
S2: It does go through a departmental process, but as Rob
10:00
S2: Harris and Nick Newling wrote, 98% of them are approved. Yeah.
10:04
S1: So it's not a merit based process. I mean, to
10:06
S1: be fair, to be fair to the government, they they
10:09
S1: were up front about it. Like there's no there's no
10:11
S1: there's no sort of skullduggery here. It is what it
10:13
S1: says on the packet kind of thing. It was always
10:16
S1: going to be an election based grant and it was
10:17
S1: given to this golf club. He just said it was
10:19
S1: for sewerage. And it's actually not for sewerage. It was
10:21
S1: for works on the building.
10:23
S2: Yeah, exactly. Right. And so labor argues that it doesn't
10:26
S2: need to go through a merit based process. These are
10:28
S2: election commitments and we're funding our election promises. But then
10:31
S2: once the media started to dig through all these grants
10:34
S2: and tie individual clubs with MPs, including the golf club
10:38
S2: and the Prime Minister who have a personal link there
10:41
S2: becomes it inflames a debate about whether even election commitments
10:46
S2: done in this way are appropriate because the public looks
10:48
S2: at it and says, well, okay, you didn't go through
10:50
S2: a merit based process. It's an election commitment. But should
10:53
S2: we be really doling out hundreds of millions of dollars
10:56
S2: to anybody who the MP favours?
10:59
S1: It's still it's still taxpayer money, and it should always
11:02
S1: be awarded according to a merit based scheme. I think
11:05
S1: most people would probably assume that that was the case
11:07
S1: with taxpayer grants.
11:08
S2: Exactly. And so in its defence, the government has formed
11:13
S2: this talking point that this grant was for a very
11:16
S2: meritorious reason to fund, uh, sewerage. However, the initial press
11:22
S2: release doesn't indicate any such purpose. And at Senate estimates
11:26
S2: this week, the government's exposed as having not funded sewerage works,
11:30
S2: which were actually funded by the state government. So in
11:32
S2: trying to defend their case on this grant and trying
11:35
S2: to create the sense that it does have merit, even
11:38
S2: though they have designed a scheme to ensure that merit
11:41
S2: is not core to the funding. They've tangled themselves up
11:45
S2: in this, and it fits. It fits a broader pattern
11:48
S2: of this government not being able to, um, deal with
11:51
S2: what initially started off as potentially trivial political issues. I
11:55
S2: think of the Bush Deep podcast, which just a required
11:58
S2: apology on day one. Oh.
12:00
S3: Kylie, clearly.
12:02
S5: You'd marry Kylie and Shagger and data.
12:04
S3: All of the above.
12:05
S5: All right. It's a triple.
12:06
S3: She's terrific.
12:08
S2: The government is now in a pattern of not being
12:10
S2: able to manage these political problems, create an atmosphere of
12:13
S2: defensiveness in the parliament, allowing the opposition to feel like
12:17
S2: they're on to a winner and setting the agenda because
12:20
S2: the government's on the back foot. Even though these issues
12:22
S2: may not be shifting any votes, it does change the
12:25
S2: atmosphere in Parliament and creates a perception that Labour is
12:28
S2: in a perpetual sense of crisis on these issues.
12:30
S1: Yeah, it's a big gotcha from from the coalition and
12:33
S1: a very worthwhile story from the ABC. Constitutional law expert
12:37
S1: Anne Twomey has called this grant scheme grey corruption. So
12:41
S1: there's sort of the, you know, that issue of whether
12:42
S1: or not the grant scheme should even exist. And I
12:44
S1: would argue it absolutely shouldn't. There's also and there's a
12:48
S1: hypocrisy angle because Labour went so hard on sports rorts.
12:51
S1: And here they are doing something sort of analogous, if
12:53
S1: not totally similar. But as you say, I wonder if
12:56
S1: this just goes towards the image of the PM being
12:58
S1: someone who just kind of can't take responsibility or who
13:02
S1: shirks accountability a little bit because he did admit his
13:05
S1: mistake in Parliament.
13:07
S6: Will the Prime Minister give Australians a straight answer, admit
13:10
S6: he misled the House and correct the record?
13:14
S3: I have said that it was not correct. It was
13:16
S3: not correct. The state government have moved in and are
13:19
S3: funding the project.
13:21
S1: But he didn't say, I'm sorry, I got that wrong,
13:23
S1: which is kind of all that was required. And maybe
13:26
S1: the same with the Japanese Prime Minister and the Mellons.
13:29
S1: Just to say, I really got that wrong. I really,
13:32
S1: you know, that was inappropriate and I apologise. Move on.
13:35
S1: Same with the falling off the stage thing. Remember that
13:38
S1: in the election campaign where he sort of wouldn't admit
13:40
S1: that he fell off the stage?
13:42
S3: You know, I stepped off the stage. I didn't fall
13:45
S3: over on my backside, I stumbled. That's what happened.
13:52
S1: I just wonder if there's a perception, definitely being fomented
13:56
S1: by the coalition, that this is a guy who just
13:58
S1: kind of can't admit when he's wrong.
14:01
S2: And the interesting thing about all of those moments, Jack,
14:04
S2: is that none of them are really high stakes.
14:06
S1: No. That's what always gets them, though, I reckon.
14:10
S2: They create a kind of long running image of a
14:13
S2: of a prime minister that's unwilling to concede in a
14:16
S2: similar way to, you know, John Howard has owned up
14:19
S2: to issues famously, Peter Beattie, Chris Minns last week owned
14:22
S2: up to an issue around train timetabling and just said,
14:25
S2: I got it totally wrong. Yes. I'm conscious. Conscious that,
14:29
S2: you know, there is a sense on the right. If
14:31
S2: you talk to the coalition and you watch Sky After Dark,
14:34
S2: there is a sense they put forward a sense that
14:37
S2: everyone in the Australian public has given up on this
14:39
S2: Prime Minister, and they know he's a massive liar. Now,
14:41
S2: I think that feeds into what Nick Dyrenfurth, the think
14:44
S2: tank leader, has started to call Albo Derangement syndrome, where
14:47
S2: the right thinks he's the most hated man in the public.
14:49
S2: I'm not convinced they're there yet, but but there is
14:52
S2: a serious risk here if this keeps going and he
14:55
S2: doesn't kind of, um, do something mid-term to upend the
14:58
S2: political dynamic and create some new energy and momentum for
15:02
S2: the government that this perception does stick.
15:04
S1: Yeah. Look, I think the polls don't bear that out because,
15:08
S1: you know, labor is still got a lead in the polls.
15:10
S1: It's not like a lead that you would want to
15:12
S1: write home about, but it would still return them to
15:15
S1: government if an election was to happen tomorrow. And that
15:18
S1: is a pretty unusual position for any government to be
15:21
S1: in mid-term. And I think it says a lot about
15:23
S1: the strength or the weaknesses more likely of the opposition.
15:26
S1: But I do think, yeah, the government seems to be
15:28
S1: drifting a little bit, like there does seem like a
15:30
S1: little mid-term drift, and we just don't we haven't heard
15:33
S1: anything sort of strong or visionary or sort of forward
15:36
S1: facing from Anthony Albanese, perhaps in a little while. They um,
15:40
S1: they will, I'm sure, crack back in the new year.
15:43
S1: I want to talk about like sort of the, the
15:45
S1: main bit of political news. I suppose it'll happen before
15:49
S1: the end of the year is the mid-year budget update,
15:51
S1: which happens I think, in early December. So that's a
15:54
S1: really important set piece for the government. And it does
15:57
S1: give them an opportunity to change the narrative or to
15:59
S1: reset the narrative on the economy, which, let's face it,
16:02
S1: is not going well for them. Jim Chalmers is under
16:04
S1: so much pressure, it seems at the moment, and people
16:08
S1: are basically saying that, you know, the government has has
16:11
S1: added to inflation by spending too much in the economy.
16:14
S1: There's a lot of people who say that the mid-year
16:17
S1: budget update looks like it's going to contain some cuts
16:19
S1: to sort of maybe answer those criticisms. What are you
16:23
S1: sort of hearing from the Treasurer's office about how to
16:25
S1: reset things for him?
16:27
S2: Well, I think at this moment the government's a bit
16:31
S2: paralysed on its economic message. It. It didn't see. And
16:36
S2: the RBA didn't see. And no commentator saw Australia being
16:40
S2: in the position it's in late in the year now
16:44
S2: with four interest rates or four interest rate rises already
16:47
S2: this year, one coming on Cup day almost certainly and
16:51
S2: potentially another one in February next year. This was unforeseen.
16:55
S2: Australia has responded in terms of how our economy is
17:00
S2: reacted to the exogenous shock of the war in Iran.
17:04
S2: It's responded uniquely poorly among G7 and G20 nations in
17:10
S2: terms of how our inflation. Yeah, it has in terms
17:13
S2: of what it's done to Australian inflation. Yeah. So the
17:15
S2: average inflation rate across advanced economies is about 3%. We've
17:19
S2: ticked up into the fours. Our economy because it had
17:24
S2: a lack of kind of supply side space coming into
17:27
S2: this shock because of our poor productivity rate because government
17:30
S2: spending was high, because the AI boom was adding spending
17:33
S2: in the economy. So business investment was ticking up. It's
17:36
S2: not just government spending, it's private spending as well. But
17:39
S2: also state government spending has been really high because of
17:43
S2: all of these factors combined. Our economy has not been
17:46
S2: able to withstand the shock in Iran, the shock caused
17:49
S2: by the war. But no.
17:51
S1: No economy has.
17:52
S2: No economy has. But we've had a higher um we've
17:55
S2: had a rate hike in cycle that is unique among
17:58
S2: similar economies.
17:59
S1: Yeah. And Michelle Bullock so RBA governor Michele Bullock was
18:02
S1: in Senate estimates this week. And she was grilled very
18:05
S1: heavily by Senator Jane Hume, Liberal Senator, about the government's
18:08
S1: spending basically. And she did say she disagreed with Hume's
18:12
S1: suggestion that domestic factors were the major driver of inflation.
18:16
S1: She said I don't think you can draw that conclusion
18:18
S1: at all. But she did say that the problem for
18:20
S1: us was that we started from a position of excess demand.
18:23
S1: So before this sort of inflationary cycle began, before Trump
18:27
S1: got us into this unnecessary and inflationary war in Iran.
18:31
S1: Australia was already in bad shape in terms of excess
18:33
S1: demand in the economy.
18:34
S2: Exactly. And put it even aside, the political blame game
18:37
S2: about which governments to blame or whether it's, um, state
18:41
S2: or federal spending or private spending or government spending. The
18:44
S2: fact is, we're in a really difficult scenario now, and
18:48
S2: the government doesn't have a political problem here in terms
18:51
S2: of dealing with some ascendant coalition or Hanson setting the
18:55
S2: terms on the economic debate. They've just got a they've
18:58
S2: got a reality problem. We have embedded inflation and a
19:03
S2: pretty large deficit, not as large as other countries. But
19:08
S2: if you spoke to almost any economist, they would say
19:10
S2: the budget deficit. We are running in a moment when
19:13
S2: government needs to be pulling back is too large, but
19:16
S2: the government has all these spending pressures on health and
19:19
S2: ageing and defence and all the worthy things that we
19:22
S2: know that need to be spent on, that still need
19:24
S2: to continue to grow. And they're paying more on their
19:26
S2: interest bill because bond yields are up, are up around
19:29
S2: the world. But there is a growing imperative and a
19:31
S2: growing consensus among think tanks, economists in the parliament, even
19:35
S2: in Labor's cabinet and backbench, that the government has to
19:39
S2: do something to pivot, to take heat out of the economy. Now,
19:43
S2: where they go on, that is hard and there are
19:45
S2: no easy choices and there are trade offs everywhere. And
19:49
S2: Chalmers has a perilously difficult job. But there is a
19:52
S2: growing sense that something must be done, and at this
19:54
S2: point the government doesn't have the answer and they're still
19:57
S2: wading through it. And that's why you're not seeing any
19:59
S2: rhetorical pivot quite yet, because I think they don't know
20:02
S2: where to go. But I suspect you'll see some effort
20:06
S2: over summer or in that myefo to do something to, to,
20:09
S2: to at least make it look like they are working
20:12
S2: hard to counter inflation because currently their lines are tired.
20:16
S2: There is no new messaging. There is no kind of
20:18
S2: acceptance of the changed, severely changed reality. And I think
20:23
S2: there's enough momentum in the government now to do something here.
20:26
S2: It's just not clear where they go yet.
20:27
S1: Yeah, it's almost like a public acknowledgment would go a
20:30
S1: long way from the Prime Minister, the treasurer, to to
20:33
S1: his credit, I think has worked very hard on this
20:36
S1: in recent weeks because he I guess he's feeling backed
20:38
S1: into a corner a little bit. He's tried to go
20:40
S1: on the front foot like he did with with this
20:43
S1: podcast and explain himself to the Australian people and to communicate.
20:47
S1: But we haven't heard that so much from the Prime Minister,
20:50
S1: this kind of, you know, this idea, particularly after next
20:52
S1: Tuesday when rate rises, when the rate rises will probably
20:55
S1: happen again. I know you're doing it tough. I know
20:58
S1: how hard it is for ordinary, um, ordinary working people
21:01
S1: at the moment. And you know, it's I, it just
21:04
S1: all goes to this real sense of hopelessness. I think
21:06
S1: that people that is really gaining traction in the election
21:09
S1: and electorally, that hopelessness just goes towards one nation, I believe.
21:14
S1: And we're going to see this previewed in the Victorian
21:17
S1: election in November, and we're going to see it previewed
21:20
S1: in the New South Wales state election in March. and
21:25
S1: I don't think it's going to be pretty for labor.
21:27
S2: Yeah, I suspect suspect you're right. And even during the,
21:31
S2: the budget, um, in May, which was a really contentious
21:34
S2: budget that caused labor to lose some paint, as Jim
21:38
S2: Chalmers admitted to us, it also caused the coalition's primary
21:41
S2: vote to drop slightly, which was, um, bucked all expectations.
21:45
S1: How did they manage that?
21:46
S2: Yeah. It goes to your point that when when people
21:48
S2: feel frustrated, they're shifting to one nation. Um, but yeah,
21:51
S2: to your point on the podcast, Jack, you're right. Chalmers
21:53
S2: has tried to well, there's been, there's, there's different interpretations
21:57
S2: of what he's been trying to say. He said in
21:59
S2: the podcast and then repeated kind of yesterday that, you know,
22:02
S2: he takes his share of the blame for the pressure
22:04
S2: on the government, but that it's up to others to
22:07
S2: talk about their segment of blame.
22:10
S7: And so I think it's only right and only fair
22:14
S7: that I put my hand up and take responsibility for
22:16
S7: my share of that. The way that other people describe
22:18
S7: their role in that and their responsibility for that is
22:21
S7: up for them, up to them.
22:23
S2: And in the podcast with us, he was even more direct.
22:25
S2: He said, it's up to prime ministers. He used plural,
22:27
S2: which was odd, and.
22:29
S1: I wasn't aware we had more than one.
22:30
S2: Of those. Yeah. To describe their role in the current problem.
22:33
S2: So that's been interpreted particularly today in the Australian as
22:36
S2: a kind of snipe at the Prime Minister. I suspect
22:39
S2: Chalmers is trying to remind the public, hey, I'm not
22:42
S2: the only one in charge here. I'm not really in
22:44
S2: Albanese's inner circle. Katy Gallagher, the finance minister, is Mark Butler,
22:49
S2: the health minister is. Penny Wong is an. Albo runs
22:53
S2: the place. The Prime Minister runs the place. So hey,
22:55
S2: it's not just me here.
22:56
S1: Yeah, I think that you always see that kind of
22:58
S1: division and fractiousness within cabinet and certainly between prime ministers
23:03
S1: and treasurers, particularly when things are going a bit south. Paul,
23:07
S1: that was a fascinating chat and we're going to keep
23:09
S1: an eye on this, particularly the economy. I just think
23:11
S1: it's very, very pertinent. And it's really the only it's
23:14
S1: really the only game in town at the moment, apart
23:16
S1: from apart from golf clubs. Thank you for your use
23:19
S1: of Exogenous. We haven't heard that on the podcast, I
23:22
S1: think ever.
23:23
S2: And that feels surely Shane Wright's rolled that one out
23:26
S2: at some point.
23:26
S1: I don't know, it's not I don't think it's a
23:27
S1: word that I've heard spoken. Um, you know, in a
23:30
S1: very long time. So I commend you and I thank
23:34
S1: you for your use of that word.
23:35
S2: I'm sorry for using pompous, highfalutin terms.
23:38
S1: The more syllables, the better. We love it. Thanks very much, Paul.
23:41
S1: See you next week.
23:42
S2: Great that you back, Jack. Bye.
23:47
S1: You can read all of our political news on our website,
23:50
S1: the age.com.au, or sms.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong.
23:57
S1: Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are
24:00
S1: overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. Before you go,
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S1: follow Inside Politics and leave a review for us on
24:08
S1: Apple or Spotify. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thanks for listening.