Latest / Inside Politics / Niki Savva on why the PM should retire, even if he does win the next election

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Niki Savva on why the PM should retire, even if he does win the next election · Inside Politics

0:02
S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
0:05
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, December 6th.
0:11
S1: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should retire. Not right now, but
0:16
S1: a decent interval after the next election if he wins it.
0:19
S1: So says Sydney Morning Herald and Age columnist Niki Savva,
0:22
S1: who is our special guest this week. David Crow is away,
0:26
S1: so Niki has agreed to come in and talk to
0:28
S1: us about her plans for Albanese's retirement. And while she's here,
0:32
S1: I'm going to ask her about what she thinks of
0:34
S1: the government's prospects of re-election and how well Peter Dutton
0:37
S1: has performed as opposition leader. We'll also talk about whether
0:41
S1: the teal independents have fulfilled their promise in the 47th Parliament.
0:45
S1: Welcome to the pod, Niki.
0:46
S2: Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.
0:51
S1: Now, Niki, you had a column published in the Sydney
0:53
S1: Morning Herald and The Age on Thursday this week, which
0:56
S1: called for the Prime Minister to retire. For those who
0:59
S1: might not have read it, can you summarize your proposition
1:02
S1: for the Prime Minister?
1:04
S2: Okay, well, it's really a kind of summing up where
1:08
S2: the government is at the moment, and I think the
1:12
S2: government is in dire straits. And if a number of
1:17
S2: things don't change, particularly the Prime Minister's performance, then I
1:24
S2: do believe that Dutton will become prime minister at the
1:29
S2: election next year. So I've begun the column in a fairly,
1:35
S2: I think, gentle and respectful way to say that if
1:41
S2: the Prime Minister is lucky enough to win this election,
1:45
S2: then he really should step aside and allow someone else
1:50
S2: to take over. There has been a lot of chatter
1:55
S2: inside the wider labor family about the Prime Minister's performance.
2:02
S2: There's putting it mildly. A fair bit of anxiety about
2:06
S2: where Labour is at and how the Prime Minister is
2:11
S2: handling himself. So it's really been prompted by that.
2:16
S1: Yeah. So I mean, Labour obviously has a long and
2:19
S1: rather dark history of not backing its leaders. And, you know,
2:23
S1: for having the revolving door of leaders and you're essentially
2:26
S1: advocating for the for the same sort of thing, aren't you?
2:29
S1: You're saying if the Prime Minister is lucky enough or
2:31
S1: successful enough to win the next election, even if it's
2:34
S1: a minority government that he leads, he needs to step
2:37
S1: aside and let fresh blood take over, because he's not
2:40
S1: going to be the 2 or 3 term prime minister
2:42
S1: that he said that he wants to be.
2:45
S2: Well, um, you know, there are some people who would
2:49
S2: say that he was lucky to get there in the
2:51
S2: first place, right? I happen to think that he got
2:54
S2: there because it wasn't only an anti Morrison And feeling
2:59
S2: he did have the right strategy to get Labour into office.
3:05
S2: And I think if you if you get in so
3:09
S2: you win one election and then you win a second election,
3:14
S2: then really that's pretty good going. That's two terms. That
3:19
S2: could be 4 or 5 years, which is actually longer
3:23
S2: than any other prime minister since John Howard. And that's
3:29
S2: pretty good going. And I don't think you should push
3:33
S2: your luck.
3:34
S1: But you're essentially saying that you don't think Albanese is
3:37
S1: one of those sort of nation building, transformative prime ministers
3:41
S1: who do stay in the job for a long time
3:44
S1: and really change the nation and usher in great reforms?
3:47
S1: He's just not that guy.
3:49
S2: Well, I think his performance in the past six months
3:55
S2: has contributed, to a large extent to the dire straits
4:00
S2: that Labour is in at the moment. I think it
4:05
S2: takes him too long to resolve issues, and when he
4:10
S2: does set about trying to fix them, he doesn't handle
4:13
S2: them properly. I think he began very well as prime minister,
4:20
S2: and they succeeded in Restabilizing relations with China, which I
4:27
S2: think was a very good thing. They got two surpluses
4:32
S2: in a row, but I think ever since the May budget,
4:38
S2: he's just seeming to me to be in la la land.
4:43
S2: Issues crop up all the time in government sometimes. You know,
4:48
S2: we have crises. Sometimes we have, you know, annoying little
4:52
S2: things that should be fixed in a day. There have
4:57
S2: been a lot of those very annoying little things that
5:02
S2: have taken weeks to resolve.
5:05
S1: Can you give an example of that kind of thing?
5:07
S2: Okay, there's there's a whole list of them. Right. But
5:11
S2: I'll mention one. And that was the questions on gender
5:16
S2: in the census.
5:18
S3: Mhm.
5:18
S2: And the first that his colleagues knew about that being
5:24
S2: a problem or an issue was when they heard about
5:29
S2: it on Sky TV from Andrew Clennell.
5:34
S4: And the government has elected not to change the census
5:36
S4: to include more questions around identity. Despite a push to
5:40
S4: do so, Sky news understands it hit them.
5:43
S2: They were blindsided by that and then it dragged on
5:48
S2: for about a week.
5:50
S1: Yeah, I mean, this is for people who don't remember that.
5:52
S1: It's basically changes to the census question, which brought in
5:56
S1: broader questions of gender identity and I think sexuality than,
5:59
S1: than we'd had in before. And Albanese sort of came
6:03
S1: in and, and cancelled the new questions that had been
6:05
S1: proposed and managed kind of to offend everybody in the process,
6:09
S1: you know, the LGBTQ plus lobby as well as the
6:12
S1: sort of Sky news crew. Isn't that right?
6:15
S2: Well, he did he offended everybody instead of, you know,
6:20
S2: he he was obviously worried that it was going to
6:23
S2: blow up into an issue, but his behaviour turned it
6:28
S2: into a much bigger issue. I think that dragged on
6:31
S2: for days and days and days.
6:33
S5: This is the first time I've been asked about it. Uh,
6:36
S5: what there isn't going to be is whole holus bolus,
6:40
S5: massive changes to the census, because we think that it's
6:45
S5: been pretty effective in the past.
6:47
S2: It would have been possible to fix that in a
6:50
S2: single day. And and it wasn't fair. And so that
6:55
S2: distracted people from other much more important things that the
7:00
S2: government might have been doing. It robbed them of an
7:03
S2: opportunity to sell some of their achievements, and that wasn't
7:08
S2: the only time that something like that happened. More recently,
7:13
S2: we had his purchase of a $4 million beach house.
7:19
S6: Good morning. $4.3 million on a Copacabana mansion in New
7:24
S6: South Wales.
7:24
S7: But political rivals have hit out at the Prime Minister's
7:27
S7: purchase in the middle of a housing crisis.
7:31
S5: As a prime minister, I earn a good income, I
7:36
S5: understand that, I understand that I've been fortunate, but I
7:39
S5: also know what it's like.
7:40
S2: That still reverberates, right? No one is begrudging him buying
7:46
S2: a beach house, but did he really have to do
7:49
S2: it now in the middle of a cost of living crisis?
7:53
S2: He didn't tell any of his colleagues about it. Once again,
7:57
S2: they were blindsided by it. Once again, there was no
8:02
S2: opportunity for the government because this story took off in
8:08
S2: the media to talk about other things, the issues that
8:12
S2: that voters really care about, like low cost of living. Yeah.
8:16
S2: And then it happened again and again and again, you know,
8:22
S2: with other peripheral issues that chew up a lot of
8:26
S2: time and make it seem as if the last thing
8:30
S2: on his mind is other people's problems.
8:35
S1: Yeah, yeah.
8:36
S2: That's been the most damaging thing for the government.
8:41
S1: The other example that you used in terms of questioning
8:44
S1: Albanese's judgment was his response to the Qantas flight upgrades,
8:48
S1: which was a few weeks ago now, where it was
8:50
S1: revealed or it was, you know, supposedly revealed in a
8:52
S1: book that he'd taken all these free upgrades that he
8:55
S1: hadn't declared. And as you say, that issue sort of
8:58
S1: bled on for the better part of a week. I mean,
9:01
S1: you write in your column that some of Albanese's colleagues
9:03
S1: have questioned his judgment. Is there any serious talk of
9:07
S1: dislodging him or of disloyalty towards him within the labor caucus?
9:12
S2: Not really. I mean, people were very badly burned by
9:17
S2: what happened with Rudd-gillard-rudd, right? So there's really no appetite
9:24
S2: to remove him before the election. And in any case,
9:28
S2: it's too late. He wouldn't go quietly. And, you know,
9:33
S2: it would just leave people thinking, oh, here we go again.
9:38
S2: But that doesn't mean that they're, you know, not concerned
9:41
S2: and not anxious about what's been happening. What they want
9:45
S2: is for him to get his head straight, you know,
9:49
S2: like with the flight upgrades. That was another thing that
9:52
S2: could have been fixed in a day or two. Except
9:56
S2: It according to what I was told. He thought it
9:59
S2: was a rubbish story. You know, that wasn't really worth
10:03
S2: responding to and that it would disappear in a couple
10:07
S2: of days. Well, it's been reverberating for weeks.
10:22
S1: I want to talk just quickly now about the opposition,
10:25
S1: because you reserve some criticism for Peter Dutton. How do
10:28
S1: you think he's performed as opposition leader?
10:30
S2: Well, I think it's fair to say much better than
10:33
S2: a lot of people expected. I think he's performing very
10:37
S2: well as an opposition leader. I'm not, you know, saying
10:42
S2: that that wouldn't make him a brilliant prime minister. I mean,
10:45
S2: we we have seen this before with Tony Abbott. He
10:49
S2: was one of the very best opposition leaders and then
10:53
S2: was an absolute dud as prime minister. But at the
10:56
S2: moment Dutton is running rings around Albanese.
11:01
S8: It seems to me that the Prime minister just can't
11:04
S8: be trusted. I think his integrity is in question and
11:07
S8: I think it's setting the agenda. But there's nothing that
11:10
S8: the Prime Minister said that's coherent, other than he picked
11:13
S8: the phone up to Alan Joyce to request an upgrade
11:16
S8: of airfares, which is something that I just don't think
11:20
S8: he can provide an explanation to it. I'm not aware
11:22
S8: of any.
11:23
S2: And when it comes to questions about his own policies
11:28
S2: or his own behaviour, he's able to just swap them
11:33
S2: away and walk away.
11:35
S1: Yeah. I mean, you make that comment in the column,
11:37
S1: which I thought was interesting that, yeah, he doesn't he
11:39
S1: doesn't get a lot of scrutiny. And he pops up
11:42
S1: very sort of randomly pops up here. He pops up there,
11:45
S1: but he doesn't often submit to full length grillings in
11:49
S1: the media. I want to ask you now about the
11:52
S1: teal independents because, well, it was a bit timely this
11:56
S1: week because Paul Fletcher, who is the member for Bradfield,
11:59
S1: which is a seat here in New South Wales, was
12:01
S1: a safe Liberal seat, although it was under attack from
12:04
S1: a community independent at the last election, Paul Fletcher. He
12:08
S1: gave a speech this week at the Sydney Institute, where
12:10
S1: he said that the teals were, quote, a green left
12:12
S1: con job funded by billionaires and that basically they were
12:16
S1: women who sort of dress themselves up in liberal clothing,
12:19
S1: if you like, but a really green left wolves underneath.
12:23
S1: What did you make of that speech, Nicky?
12:25
S2: Well, you know, on the one hand, I couldn't stop
12:28
S2: laughing because it's a cardinal rule, isn't it? The voters
12:33
S2: always get it right. But Paul Fletcher decided, you know,
12:37
S2: stroke of genius to go out there and call his
12:41
S2: constituents idiots, that they really didn't know what they were doing,
12:46
S2: that they were being taken in by these women who
12:51
S2: you've got to say are pretty smart. And that's why
12:55
S2: they won.
12:56
S9: The toss, then, are very much in the tradition of
12:59
S9: front groups established by left wing political operatives, which are
13:02
S9: designed to lure votes away from the Liberal Party by
13:06
S9: tricking voters about the bona fides. As with other groups,
13:09
S9: over time, many of the campaign volunteers are members of
13:13
S9: unions or the Labour Party or the Greens political party,
13:15
S9: and have simply put on a different t shirt for
13:18
S9: a few weeks.
13:20
S2: And I think that doesn't augur very well for Mr.
13:24
S2: Fletcher's chances at the next election. He was in a
13:28
S2: lot of trouble anyway, but people knew exactly what they
13:33
S2: were doing at the last election. They were sending a
13:37
S2: message to the Liberal Party that they needed to do better.
13:44
S2: They were also sending the same message to Labour, by
13:47
S2: the way, um, you know, change or die. Yeah. And
13:53
S2: I think that message is still there, and Mr. Fletcher
13:58
S2: showed that he didn't get it then. And he doesn't
14:02
S2: get it now.
14:03
S1: Yeah. It might have been a sort of terrible act
14:05
S1: of self-sabotage on his part. We'll see, I suppose. I'm interested.
14:09
S1: Do you think that the teal independents have fulfilled their promise?
14:12
S1: They were elected with such high hopes that the 2020 election,
14:15
S1: as you and I have sort of said to each
14:16
S1: other off air, the election of all those teal crossbenchers
14:20
S1: was one of the greatest revolutions that we've seen in
14:22
S1: in our politics, I think for decades. For the first time,
14:25
S1: we had almost a sort of even third, third, third
14:28
S1: split between the two major parties and then crossbenchers and
14:31
S1: independents and Greens. You know, it seemed like a structural
14:35
S1: pivotal shift that was not going backwards anytime soon. Do
14:39
S1: you think that's the case? Do you agree with that?
14:41
S1: Do you think the teals are kind of here to stay?
14:43
S2: Definitely. They're here to stay. They're going to be very
14:46
S2: hard to dislodge, and they're going to expand and their
14:52
S2: influence will only keep increasing. I mean, I think they've
14:57
S2: all performed really very well in their own way. I think,
15:02
S2: you know, like I say, they're they're very smart. I
15:06
S2: find them all pretty impressive. And someone who knows them
15:11
S2: all said to me recently, they're all described them as
15:14
S2: alpha females. And I think that's pretty right. I think
15:19
S2: if we do end up with a minority government, that
15:24
S2: they will play a pivotal role in the next Parliament,
15:28
S2: and I think that'll be a good thing.
15:32
S1: You've pretty much just answered my question, but I wanted
15:34
S1: to ask you whether or not Australians should be worried
15:36
S1: about the prospect of a minority government at the next
15:38
S1: election or after the next election that is reliant on
15:41
S1: negotiation with the crossbench. We've had one experience in recent
15:45
S1: times of a minority government, and it didn't end well,
15:48
S1: you could say. Nicky.
15:50
S2: Well, it didn't end well because Cause of the tensions
15:56
S2: between the leadership, you know, with Gillard and Rudd, you know,
16:00
S2: that ran all the way through that term. But they
16:05
S2: did achieve quite a few things in those three years.
16:08
S2: We've got a carbon price, we've got the NDIS. And
16:13
S2: I've just finished reading quarterly essay by George Megalogenis, who's also, um,
16:20
S2: a colleague of ours. Uh, it's an excellent essay called
16:24
S2: Minority Report. And he basically concludes by saying we don't
16:30
S2: have anything to fear from it. Um, because, um, I
16:35
S2: think the sort of people that, you know, we do
16:39
S2: have in the Parliament now, um, in, in those seats are,
16:45
S2: are conscientious. They have a reasonably good policies when it
16:51
S2: comes to, say, Allegra Spender with her tax reform policies
16:55
S2: and also on climate and and various other issues. And
17:01
S2: I think forcing the major parties to negotiate to actually
17:06
S2: get things done is probably a very good thing.
17:11
S1: I want to ask you, just because we ask everyone this,
17:13
S1: even though it's pure speculation, when do you think Albanese
17:17
S1: might call the next election, or when would it be
17:19
S1: sort of good for him to do so in terms
17:21
S1: of his own government's prospects?
17:23
S2: Well, I get the impression that he's itching to call
17:27
S2: it right, and I think that would be a mistake.
17:30
S2: I think he's best to wait until May, which is
17:34
S2: when his term expires. His best to in the interim.
17:40
S2: Like I say, get his head straight and stop making
17:43
S2: mistakes and start performing in the way people expect a
17:47
S2: prime Minister to perform. And I think that would be
17:52
S2: his best chance of staying in office.
17:57
S1: Yeah, Nicky, that has been such an interesting chat, and
18:00
S1: it's always so good to have you on the podcast.
18:02
S1: We really appreciate you making time. If people haven't read
18:05
S1: Nicky's column from this week, you can read it on
18:07
S1: the age of the Sydney Morning Herald websites. It's a
18:09
S1: real cracker.
18:10
S2: Thank you Jacqueline.
18:13
S1: Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Kai Wong
18:16
S1: with technical assistance by Belen Sanchez. Our executive producer is
18:21
S1: Tammy Mills. Our head of audio is Tom McKendrick. Inside
18:25
S1: politics is a production of The Age and The Sydney
18:28
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S1: or Smh.com.au forward slash. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley, this is
18:43
S1: inside politics. Thanks for listening.