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The politics of war, and why Peter Dutton was so upset over leaked Liberal Party review · The Morning Edition

0:01
S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley, and you're listening to Inside Politics from
0:04
S1: The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Israel and the
0:08
S1: United States are at war with Iran in a rapidly
0:11
S1: escalating conflict that Australia seems to be trying to keep
0:14
S1: out of as much as possible. But today, we're going
0:16
S1: to talk about how viable it is to be neutral
0:19
S1: these days, and whether Australia is doing its duty as
0:22
S1: a middle power. And we're also going to discuss the
0:24
S1: Liberal Party review. Opposition leader Angus Taylor and others have
0:28
S1: tried to keep it secret, only to have it leaked
0:30
S1: by none other than the Prime Minister himself this week,
0:33
S1: which kind of ended up reinforcing the main point of
0:36
S1: the review about the party's competency. Joining me to chat.
0:40
S1: We have our foreign affairs correspondent, Matthew Knott, and our
0:43
S1: chief political correspondent, Paul Cicala, as usual, and both are
0:47
S1: joining me from Canberra. Welcome, gentlemen.
0:49
S2: Good morning. Hello.
0:51
S1: Matthew. Not last Saturday, Israel and the United States launched
0:54
S1: joint missile attacks on Iran in an operation that the
0:58
S1: Trump administration called Operation Epic fury. And since then, over
1:03
S1: the course of the week, the war has very much escalated,
1:04
S1: with Iran striking US targets in the Middle East. There's
1:07
S1: a very uncertain timeline for the war, as well as
1:10
S1: very uncertain strategic objectives, I would say. Oil supplies are disrupted.
1:15
S1: Aircraft travel has been disrupted. What what has been the
1:19
S1: response of the Australian government at an official level about
1:22
S1: this war?
1:24
S3: Well, the Australian government was out incredibly quickly supporting the
1:29
S3: US and Israel's action. And intriguingly, given who's been visiting
1:35
S3: Sydney and Canberra this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney,
1:38
S3: a Canada and Australia have used basically identical language, particularly
1:43
S3: in those early hours since the attack that they supported
1:47
S3: the US and Israel strikes.
1:50
S4: Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their
1:54
S4: struggle against what is an oppressive regime.
1:58
S3: They supported the efforts to ensure that Iran cannot get
2:03
S3: a nuclear weapon, and that Iran cannot continue supporting a
2:07
S3: terror throughout the region in the Middle East. I think
2:11
S3: one thing to note with the Prime Minister here is
2:15
S3: that he feels this quite strongly on Iran.
2:19
S4: We have not been immune from the impacts of the
2:23
S4: regime's actions right here in Australia.
2:26
S3: Because of what we've seen in Australia.
2:28
S4: At least two attacks orchestrated by the IRGC on Australian
2:34
S4: soil in 2024, including the firebombing of the Adar synagogue
2:41
S4: in Melbourne, aimed at creating fear amongst Jewish Australians but
2:46
S4: also aimed at dividing our nation.
2:51
S3: This has had a big effect on the Prime Minister,
2:54
S3: and I think that helps explain not just our traditional
2:58
S3: support for the US or being afraid of annoying Donald Trump.
3:02
S3: But that anger he has towards the regime in Iran
3:05
S3: explains why he was out very strongly supporting this action.
3:10
S3: Even if we obviously have concerns about where it's going
3:14
S3: to lead.
3:14
S1: Yeah. And that state backed terror by Iran led to
3:18
S1: basically severing of diplomatic relations. And obviously we kicked out
3:22
S1: the the Iranian ambassador and they pled innocence at all times.
3:26
S1: Just to be clear, is there any Australian involvement in
3:29
S1: the war? The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, has said that
3:31
S1: we had no heads up. We had no advance notice
3:34
S1: of the strikes. Did was Australia involved at all?
3:38
S3: The government's assisting? Absolutely not. It's saying these two things
3:42
S3: really as strongly as each other. The first that we
3:44
S3: support the initial action here. Secondly, we had absolutely nothing
3:48
S3: to do with it. Defence Minister Richard Marles even went
3:52
S3: so far during the week to say that the Us-australia
3:56
S3: facilities at Pine Gap, for example, were not used to
4:00
S3: provide intelligence on this. And that's a pretty extraordinary thing,
4:03
S3: because ministers usually would not talk about what goes on
4:07
S3: at Pine Gap. It's incredibly secretive. It's basically a US
4:11
S3: facility more than our own. I don't think even the
4:15
S3: defence minister would know everything that's going on there, but
4:19
S3: that just showed how strongly the government wanted to make
4:22
S3: clear we're not providing active support for these strikes. You know,
4:27
S3: Australia does have troops stationed in the Middle East and
4:31
S3: at bases. Uh, but we are not playing an active role.
4:36
S1: It seems like it's very much an Israel and the
4:38
S1: United States joint operation with no one else involved, at
4:42
S1: least initially. And most legal experts and other commentators, international
4:46
S1: law experts are saying that the war is illegal under
4:48
S1: the precepts of international law. Paul, what is the Albanese
4:52
S1: government had to say about the legality or otherwise of
4:55
S1: the war?
4:57
S2: Well, firstly, on their justification for the support for the war,
5:00
S2: they are careful in their language to justify their support
5:03
S2: on the basis that the strikes could degrade Iran's nuclear capacity.
5:08
S2: They don't say explicitly that they supported the war to
5:12
S2: topple the regime. There are members of the cabinet who
5:15
S2: were members of the Labor Party in 2000. In the
5:17
S2: early 2000, when the Labor Party under Simon Crean famously
5:21
S2: opposed the Iraq War, which is a famous example of
5:24
S2: the challenges or near impossibility of clean regime change in
5:27
S2: the Middle East. So they've been careful to say that
5:30
S2: they support the war because Australia, as a country that
5:33
S2: sees Iran as a destabilising, destructive force around the globe,
5:37
S2: does not believe Iran should build up towards a nuclear weapon.
5:41
S2: On the point of legality. Penny Wong and the Prime
5:43
S2: Minister have said repeatedly that it's on the US and
5:47
S2: Israel effectively to explain how international law was adhered to here.
5:51
S2: There's an obvious discomfort on the part of Mark Carney
5:55
S2: and Anthony Albanese and many European leaders in terms of
5:58
S2: how they viewed the US's consultation on these strikes. There
6:01
S2: was no heads up given to Canada or Australia or
6:04
S2: European allies. There was no attempt, as you saw with
6:07
S2: George Bush back in the early 2000, to go to
6:10
S2: a UN body to build up the case for war.
6:13
S2: There were public statements for months about the prospect of action,
6:17
S2: given Iran's reluctance to give in to the full extent
6:21
S2: of Trump's demands on their nuclear program. But in terms
6:25
S2: of bringing allies into the tent to justify this, that
6:28
S2: didn't exist. And so you have this line from the
6:30
S2: government to say, yes, we support the broader intent of
6:33
S2: this war. We may be uncomfortable with the tactics, but
6:36
S2: certainly on the legality, we leave that to the US
6:39
S2: and Israel to, to, to, to answer for.
6:42
S1: Yeah, it's sort of a very concerted attempt to have
6:44
S1: no opinion on something which is which is quite glaring.
6:47
S1: There has been some dissent from within the Labour ranks,
6:49
S1: hasn't there? Noddy from former Foreign minister Bob Carr, who's not,
6:52
S1: not no. One, and some of the Labour caucus members.
6:56
S3: Yes. I think a lot of this is happening underneath
6:59
S3: the the surface really. And I spoke to Bob Carr
7:03
S3: this week to just try and bring some of that
7:05
S3: to light, because I think he does speak for a
7:07
S3: substantial portion of the Labor Party, the labor movement, that
7:12
S3: has a lot of disquiet about the fact this is happening.
7:17
S3: A but b that Australia came out so strongly in
7:20
S3: support of it. I think what Paul was speaking about
7:23
S3: there with a Penny Wong in particular, having to stand
7:26
S3: up every day and be asked, you know, are these
7:30
S3: strikes legal or illegal under international law? And she has
7:33
S3: to act. Really. That's for someone else to deal with.
7:37
S5: That is these that that question about the legal basis
7:41
S5: of the action is a matter for the countries participating
7:44
S5: in the action, which is the US and Israel. What
7:47
S5: we have said is that there's two is a few points.
7:50
S5: One is we know over many years that.
7:53
S3: It's a very awkward because you won't find any respectable
7:56
S3: international law expert basically anywhere. Who would say these strikes
8:01
S3: are legal. Uh, Australia's always talking about the illegal invasion
8:06
S3: of Ukraine. You know, we make judgments all the time
8:08
S3: about what's illegal or not under international law. But she's
8:12
S3: just in this position where she can't say one way
8:15
S3: or the other. Yeah. Which makes her look pretty ineffectual on.
8:20
S1: Makes it look a bit silly. It makes them all
8:22
S1: look a bit silly because we all we all know
8:24
S1: what the truth is.
8:25
S2: Yeah, well, could I just make one more point on
8:26
S2: international law? I think it's worth pointing out that even
8:29
S2: though the government is clearly not trying to not weigh
8:32
S2: into that question, they are seeking to build up the case,
8:36
S2: the moral case for why this strike was justified without
8:39
S2: fully making making specific claims that they support the way
8:43
S2: the US went about it. They've made the point repeatedly
8:46
S2: that this is a regime that's killed tens of thousands
8:48
S2: of people in recent months and has no legal standing
8:52
S2: as a as a legitimate government. They've talked about the
8:54
S2: terror attacks on Australian soil in an attempt to build
8:57
S2: up Australian public support for it. And you had Raff Ciccone,
9:01
S2: the kind of hawkish labor senator on Wednesday in Parliament.
9:05
S2: Stand up and say this is a moment of moral clarity.
9:08
S6: And this moment is for moral clarity. We stand against
9:11
S6: the brutal regime. We stand against nuclear proliferation, and we
9:14
S6: stand with the Iranian people.
9:16
S2: The Greens and some journalists in the ABC need to
9:19
S2: understand that the Iranian diaspora. This is his point. The
9:23
S2: Iranian diaspora in Australia supports these strikes. So without without
9:28
S2: going close to making the point that this does adhere
9:30
S2: to international law, they are in a way trying to
9:33
S2: say that there is a higher justice here.
9:35
S1: As you say, there's a moral case in a legal case.
9:37
S1: And I suppose they're quite two, two quite separate things. Interestingly, Matt,
9:41
S1: the eruption of this conflict has coincided with the visit
9:44
S1: of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, which Paul mentioned before.
9:48
S1: He's a very honoured guest in Australia. He spoke to
9:50
S1: Parliament on Thursday. On Wednesday in Sydney, he gave a
9:53
S1: talk to the Lowy Institute. And, you know, just to
9:56
S1: give listeners a bit of context, he gave a barnstorming
9:59
S1: speech a few months ago at the Davos economic summit
10:02
S1: where he said basically he he said the quiet part
10:05
S1: out loud. And he said, you know, there has been
10:07
S1: a rupture in the in the world order. He called
10:10
S1: upon middle powers to work together to counter the hard
10:12
S1: power of hegemony. He said the rules based order is fading,
10:16
S1: and we're moving to more of a. The strong can
10:18
S1: do what they do, and the weak must suffer what
10:20
S1: they must, which is a Thucydides quote he really sort
10:24
S1: of called it. And a lot of people saw this
10:26
S1: speech as quite striking and as the first sort of
10:29
S1: middle power or, you know, Trump ally or American ally
10:33
S1: to really call out what is happening with the expression
10:36
S1: of US power. What he had to say this week
10:40
S1: in Sydney and Canberra, has he been reiterating those themes?
10:44
S3: He definitely has. But I think what we're seeing on
10:47
S3: this trip, and it's also worth noting the Australia trip
10:50
S3: is in between a visit to India and a visit
10:54
S3: to Japan. So you can see these countries that he's
10:57
S3: visiting in the Indo-Pacific, you know, three very important democracies,
11:02
S3: but he's trying to spread Canada's message, you know, far
11:05
S3: away from North America. I think he's trying to put
11:09
S3: some meat onto the bones of this idea of what
11:12
S3: he was talking about and what he got headlines for.
11:15
S7: And the question today for middle powers like us, is
11:19
S7: whether we establish the conventions and help write the new
11:23
S7: rules that will determine our security and prosperity, or let
11:28
S7: the hegemons dictate outcomes.
11:31
S3: Which was essentially saying that the old rules based order
11:35
S3: is dead and we shouldn't mourn it for too long.
11:37
S3: We're living in a new world. You could describe it
11:40
S3: in a way as quite analytical, quite academic. He was
11:43
S3: diagnosing a problem. What we're seeing on this trip is, well,
11:48
S3: what's the solution? You know, it's easy to say that
11:50
S3: we're not living in this world, this pretty pleasant world
11:54
S3: we were living in before. So how do you actually
11:56
S3: go about that beyond just talking about middle powers doing
12:01
S3: more together? So what we heard several times in his
12:04
S3: speech was this idea of variable geometry.
12:08
S7: Canada is choosing to create a dense web of connections
12:14
S7: to build our resilience. We've adopted a new framework for
12:18
S7: engaging the world variable geometry, creating different coalitions for different
12:23
S7: issues based on common values and interests for those issues.
12:28
S3: Which I think explains what Mark Carney is trying to
12:33
S3: do here, it's pretty catchy.
12:35
S1: I was about to say it's a very unsexy headline,
12:37
S1: but maybe we have different tastes in that area.
12:39
S3: It's pretty wonky and that's that's the thing. Mark Carney
12:42
S3: is a former central banker in the UK and Canada.
12:47
S3: You know, they're not always known as being the most exciting, uh, people.
12:52
S3: No offense to central bankers, but he comes from a
12:55
S3: wonky world and this is his approach. So what he's
12:58
S3: getting at there with this idea of variable geometry is, uh,
13:02
S3: of course, we have, a multilateral system with the UN
13:05
S3: and other big organizations. We have our traditional alliances with
13:09
S3: countries like the US. But what middle powers like Australia, Canada, Japan,
13:15
S3: South Korea, you can keep going. They need to be
13:18
S3: doing a lot more together without the superpowers of China
13:22
S3: and the US, for example, doing a lot more together
13:25
S3: in particular groupings that make sense for particular initiatives. So
13:29
S3: you can have three countries working on critical minerals for
13:32
S3: countries working on defense cooperation.
13:35
S2: Social media.
13:36
S3: Social media ban, climate change that we need. All these
13:40
S3: countries looking a lot less to Washington in particular is
13:45
S3: the subtext. You know, you can think about this in
13:47
S3: terms of the amount of visits that Australian leaders and
13:50
S3: Canadian leaders have made to Washington over the years, versus
13:54
S3: how rare it is to have a Canadian leader here.
13:57
S3: That's just symbolic of. We tend to take it for granted.
13:59
S3: You know, we get along. We have like minded, uh, values.
14:03
S3: He's really saying, we need to put some structure around this,
14:07
S3: and we need to be looking at a very practical
14:11
S3: level of what we can do together.
14:13
S1: He sort of talked about it in terms of a financier. Again,
14:16
S1: he talked about hedging against risk and basically said that's
14:19
S1: what it will happen when you have, you know, these
14:21
S1: major powers, you know, including the US, who are basically
14:25
S1: all fighting for status with each other and using that
14:29
S1: power to to exploit lesser powers like Canada and Australia. Paul,
14:34
S1: I wonder, I mean, you know, in contrast to Prime
14:37
S1: Minister Carney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been very cautious,
14:43
S1: very polite. Some would say he would probably say he's
14:47
S1: been very pragmatic in his dealings with the Trump administration.
14:49
S1: He's done deals where he could, particularly on critical minerals.
14:52
S1: We've got, you know, a fairly relatively good deal on
14:55
S1: tariffs compared to other countries in the world. So he
14:58
S1: would say, you know, his pragmatic approach is paying off.
15:01
S1: He certainly hasn't done a mark Carney and made a
15:03
S1: barnstorming speech about, you know, how middle power should rise up.
15:07
S1: Where does Australia sort of sit in terms of its
15:09
S1: middle power status, and are we pulling our weight?
15:12
S2: Well, I think we've got to acknowledge that there are
15:14
S2: different circumstances in Australia and Canada. I mean, the tyranny
15:17
S2: of distance benefits us here in some ways. Carney came
15:20
S2: into power at an election around the same time as
15:23
S2: our election. I think it was in April last year.
15:25
S2: The Canadian one and the months leading up to the
15:28
S2: Canadian election were characterized by this huge rupture between Canada
15:32
S2: and the US, where Trump started talking about Canada as
15:34
S2: the 51st or 52nd state, whichever the number is. He
15:38
S2: was on track to lose that election. Mark Carney, the
15:41
S2: conservative's about to win. And Carney kind of, um, took
15:44
S2: hold of this populist, nationalist instinct to, uh, have a
15:48
S2: fight with the US for the first time in really
15:51
S2: modern history. And that was hugely successful. Australia's been largely
15:55
S2: left alone by the Trump administration, and there have been
15:57
S2: some small bouts. But the strategy here has been to
16:01
S2: not poke the bear to remind the US administration of
16:05
S2: the huge security benefit of having Australia in its toe
16:10
S2: in the Asia Pacific, particularly in relation to the contest
16:13
S2: in the Indo Pacific and with China. And people in
16:16
S2: the Albanese government argue that they have been making similar
16:19
S2: speeches to the one Carney delivered at Davos for months
16:23
S2: and years. I think that's a little bit facile because, yes,
16:27
S2: they have been talking about the multi-polar world. They have
16:30
S2: been talking about re-engaging with Asia, and that's been demonstrated
16:33
S2: in its actions. But there's not been one standout speech
16:36
S2: from the Prime minister, which really captures the attention in
16:39
S2: the same way Carney has not.
16:43
S1: You speak to foreign policy wonks within the government. You
16:45
S1: speak to national security experts and advisers within the government
16:49
S1: all the time. What is your sense of the strategy
16:51
S1: that the Albanese government is bringing to its dealings with
16:54
S1: the Trump administration, particularly on sort of global affairs matters,
16:58
S1: as opposed to trade and economic stuff?
17:02
S3: I think there's more doing and less telling than, say,
17:06
S3: what Canada and Mark Carney is doing. Like it's noticeable
17:09
S3: that after that speech, uh, Albanese invited him to give
17:14
S3: an address to Parliament, which is very rare. There's only
17:16
S3: been five in the last decade. So that shows he's
17:20
S3: aboard the Mark Carney train. He's putting on quite a
17:24
S3: show for him. This week they're pursuing a lot of
17:27
S3: initiatives together. But Albanese will not use all the grand
17:31
S3: rhetorical language that Carney is going to use. So I
17:34
S3: think Albanese wants to absolutely have it both ways. He
17:37
S3: wants to pursue all these options where he can with
17:41
S3: middle powers. He's trying to stay very close to the
17:44
S3: Trump administration to get everything he can out of them.
17:47
S3: Something like Aukus would be exactly what Mark Carney would
17:51
S3: be saying. You don't want to get involved in, because
17:53
S3: it does put us in a.
17:54
S1: The Canadians have indeed been very, very skeptical and very
17:57
S1: cautious about Aukus.
17:58
S3: Yeah, yes, because it is something that puts us in
18:01
S3: a subordinate position to the US. We're waiting years down
18:05
S3: the track to see whether they will actually give us
18:08
S3: these nuclear powered submarines that we're going to be reliant
18:11
S3: on by then. So there are clear contradictions here. And
18:15
S3: what Albanese would say is that he's trying to balance
18:19
S3: them all against each other. There's no point in annoying
18:22
S3: our biggest security partner. Quite amazingly, he's still just left
18:27
S3: his offer to join the Board of Peace. He's just
18:29
S3: left him on read. Really and not given an answer,
18:32
S3: even though the whole thing is already holding meetings and
18:34
S3: it's all the train's left the station, but we're just saying, oh,
18:37
S3: we're giving it a think. So that shows exactly how
18:41
S3: he views it. He'll avoid conflict for as long as
18:44
S3: humanly possible with the Trump administration.
18:48
S1: I suppose.
18:48
S3: He can.
18:49
S1: He can he can comfortably rely on the the shortness
18:52
S1: of Trump's attention span. And he's a very evident distraction
18:55
S1: at the moment from the Board of Peace. Paul, let's
18:58
S1: just segue very quickly to the Liberal Party internal review,
19:02
S1: just for listeners who aren't caught up after every election.
19:05
S1: The Liberal Party does a major internal review to determine
19:08
S1: what went wrong or what went right. A lot went wrong.
19:11
S1: I think we can say at the 2025 election for
19:13
S1: the Liberal Party, the review has been done for months now,
19:17
S1: but the party's been sitting on it, refusing to make
19:19
S1: it public. Peter Dutton, former opposition leader, has been threatening
19:22
S1: to sue over it and the decision was kind of
19:25
S1: taken out of their hands this week because Prime Minister
19:27
S1: Albanese gleefully tabled in parliament. I think everybody and their
19:31
S1: dog had a copy of this review. If it got
19:33
S1: to the Prime Minister, what did the review say and
19:36
S1: why did they want to suppress it so much?
19:40
S2: The review didn't say that much. That hasn't already been
19:42
S2: traversed in the public either. In our reporting in Niki
19:46
S2: Savva's book earthquake, in so much of the public navel
19:51
S2: gazing the Liberal Party has engaged in for however many
19:53
S2: months it's been now. So in some ways, this this
19:56
S2: document wasn't quite as, you know, earth shattering as it
20:00
S2: was made out to be in the, in the, in
20:01
S2: the public discussion. But what occurred here was that as
20:05
S2: the report was finalised late last year, Peter Dutton was
20:08
S2: given a copy only as the party's federal executive was
20:12
S2: reading it for the first time. So there was a
20:14
S2: meeting in mid-December, just before the Bondi massacre, where the
20:17
S2: federal executive got the documents printed out. They weren't allowed
20:21
S2: digital copies, so they couldn't leak it. And at the
20:23
S2: exact moment the meeting started, Peter Dutton got it in
20:26
S2: his inbox and got a call or a text or
20:28
S2: some from someone saying you have the report. Now, he
20:30
S2: was offended that he got it only at the same
20:32
S2: time as the federal executive, because he believed that he
20:34
S2: didn't have time to respond, and he actually sent a
20:37
S2: message to John Olsen, the president of the federal executive,
20:40
S2: who read out Dutton's message in the meeting. And the
20:43
S2: message said, I've just had a look through this thing.
20:46
S2: There are factual errors. There are defamatory comments about me.
20:49
S2: If this thing sees the light of day, I will
20:52
S2: engage lawyers. I have already started the process of engaging
20:54
S2: lawyers to stop this thing being made public. So from
20:57
S2: that moment on, it was tainted and he took issue
21:00
S2: to the kind of florid and in some ways really
21:05
S2: brazenly honest way he was described. It referenced candidates about it.
21:11
S1: I thought it was, um, it was pretty standard. I
21:13
S1: read it and it said that he was not attractive
21:16
S1: to women, which he took.
21:17
S3: Which he's taken offense to. He seems to have taken
21:19
S3: very literally, but I could imagine reading it as women
21:23
S3: did not want to vote for you. Yeah.
21:25
S1: Rather than.
21:25
S3: I read physical sense.
21:26
S2: I read it that way as well.
21:28
S1: I mean, I don't I don't know what what business
21:30
S1: to political sort of political party reviewers would have had
21:33
S1: making comments about his personal appearance. I mean, what's the
21:36
S1: sort of upshot from it? Just quickly, Peter Dutton was upset,
21:40
S1: but it's all out in the open now. Will they
21:42
S1: just quickly move on? Is it just sort of, you know,
21:45
S1: have the recommendations of the review actually been adopted?
21:49
S2: Just to circle back quickly on the Dutton offense? It
21:52
S2: was it wasn't just him who had the feeling after
21:56
S2: reading it that it was far too descriptive and honest.
22:00
S2: These reports are usually written in a very sober way
22:03
S2: so as to set a person to sleep. This is
22:06
S2: the first review anyone can recall that just kind of
22:10
S2: included the observations of a candidate, or the observations of
22:15
S2: the reviewers themselves, in a very open and honest manner.
22:18
S2: It wasn't written in the kind of short, concise, black
22:22
S2: and white, legally sound way, as these reports usually are,
22:25
S2: so that that got people's backups. It backs up even
22:28
S2: the people who are not. Peter Dutton fans thought the
22:31
S2: report could have been written in a way that spared
22:34
S2: Dutton and many others embarrassment. But anyway, putting that to
22:36
S2: one side.
22:37
S1: Could have been whitewashed a bit more. Yeah.
22:40
S2: Well. But I mean, it's not it's not the parties.
22:43
S2: Why would a political party write some scathing review of
22:45
S2: itself and put that into the.
22:47
S1: Because the result was so bad that, you know, maybe
22:50
S1: something different has had to happen. I mean, Jane Hume
22:53
S1: sort of getting off track here, but Jane Hume, who's
22:55
S1: now obviously the deputy leader, famously did the last election
22:59
S1: review didn't work very well. None of the recommendations were
23:02
S1: taken up. And they got a huge, you know, bashing
23:05
S1: at the next election, which has almost put them out
23:07
S1: of business as a political party.
23:09
S2: Totally. But it's pretty abnormal practice for a political party
23:11
S2: to be scathing of individuals and have that report be public.
23:15
S2: Like that's not an obligation. They have no obligation to
23:17
S2: the public. They have an obligation to their members to
23:20
S2: make change, but not to.
23:21
S1: Release a document, I guess. But yeah, so it was
23:23
S1: I mean, it's been it's been controversial. And I suppose
23:26
S1: the upshot is that it's, it's just sowed more bad blood. Yeah.
23:30
S1: In the Liberal Party.
23:32
S2: And the fact that they've been able to stuff up
23:35
S2: what is meant to be a process of positive change
23:38
S2: in such an extraordinarily public and humiliating manner and to
23:42
S2: have tried to suppress this thing, uh, which led to
23:45
S2: the obvious next step of it being leaked and poured
23:48
S2: over in in more detail than it would have been
23:50
S2: if they'd just released it publicly. Just goes to show
23:52
S2: the malaise in the organisation, the lack of trust between
23:55
S2: key individuals, the just moribund nature of the party's professional staff.
24:01
S2: They're in a world of pain.
24:02
S1: Yeah. Naughty. Anything to add there? What do you think
24:05
S1: of the Liberal Party election review scandal?
24:07
S3: That I was surprised reading it. It's of course great
24:10
S3: to have these things leaked and to be able to
24:13
S3: read it for ourselves, but everything I've read of it
24:16
S3: isn't that surprising. Besides some of the florid descriptions, the
24:20
S3: effort to keep it secret probably just generated even more
24:24
S3: interest in it than than they would already be. I
24:27
S3: was just interested in asking Paul whether does it have
24:31
S3: any persuasive answers, not just backward looking about. To be honest,
24:35
S3: it is a bit out of date now in terms
24:37
S3: of how different the world is. We have such a
24:38
S3: different leader. Does it actually have persuasive recommendations for how
24:42
S3: they could get back on track?
24:44
S2: Yeah. It has it has some critical recommendations that have
24:47
S2: already been adopted. That's another paradox here is that the
24:50
S2: federal executive in December actually agreed, you know, in full
24:53
S2: to adopt the recommendations. So nobody suggests it hasn't suggested
24:57
S2: positive change. And they largely organizational changes around codifying the
25:01
S2: role of the federal director. Who's the campaign Uh, because
25:05
S2: there was this contest between Dutton's office and the campaign
25:08
S2: professional staff as to who actually had control. So there's
25:11
S2: some very practical, not very sexy suggestions that were put
25:13
S2: forward that have been adopted.
25:16
S1: But they're not the ones grabbing the headlines, unfortunately for
25:19
S1: Peter Dutton. Fellas, that's been a very illuminating chat and
25:23
S1: I really appreciate you both coming on. We'll see you
25:26
S1: next week. Paul and Nadia hope I'll see you very,
25:28
S1: very soon.
25:29
S3: Any time. Just give me a call.
25:31
S2: Thanks, guys.
25:37
S1: You can read all of our political news on our
25:39
S1: website or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong
25:46
S1: with help from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills,
25:49
S1: and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick.
25:54
S1: Before you go, follow Inside Politics and leave us a
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S1: review on Apple or Spotify. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you
25:59
S1: for listening.