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- [00:03]
A
Can the coalition reunite after two weeks of political infighting? And will the Liberal and National Party's leaders, Susan Lee and David Littleproud, even keep their jobs, given the threats to their leadership that continue to play out as this episode goes to air? These are only two of the political tripwires that are at high risk of being stepped on this week, a period that veteran political analyst Sean Kelly calls absolutely insane. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris, and you're listening to the MORNING EDITION from the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today columnist Sean Kelly on this week's expected chaos and whether it might lead the government to finally enact bold changes in housing and tax reform. It's Tuesday, February 3rd. Welcome, Sean, to the Morning Edition.
- [01:01]
B
Thanks so much for having me.
- [01:02]
A
Oh, my God. Quite a week that we are launching into. So let's just, let's just start off with the turmoil that might possibly roll out in the next days or possibly the next couple weeks. I mean, there's a number of quite significant political changes, I think, that could come about this week. Any of them on their own would be enough to make front page headlines, let alone all of them together. So tell us, like, what are the various shifts that we could see this week or the next couple weeks?
- [01:28]
B
Oh, this, this is a crazy week. It is an absolutely crazy week to have this much chaos in both the coalition parties, the Liberals and the Nationals, to potentially have two leadership spills. Yeah, it's absolutely insane. Our party room has made it very clear we cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Susan Lee. I'm hoping to achieve a change of leadership in the National.
- [01:52]
A
David Little crowd will remain leader of the Nationals following an unsuccessful spill motion this afternoon. We're fed up with the mass migration and the effects it's having on just ordinary Australians out there.
- [02:04]
B
And the thing that will actually occupy a greater number of Australians than any of the others, I think, is the interest rate rise. So the thing that is actually out of the hands of politicians as we're recording this on Monday morning, we don't know whether that will come. The Reserve bank will tell us, but that will be a very significant factor, not least because it risks significantly confusing the government's narrative. Of course, inflation has been coming down. The government has been keen to take some credit for that. The coalition will be very keen to blame labor for any further rises in inflation. And then there will inevitably be speculation, if there is a rate rise, whether there'll be any further rate rises to follow it. Meanwhile, the coalition are trying to decide whether or not to get on with rolling their leader. They're partly saying, well, we shouldn't wait a little because we should actually attack the government on this interest rate rise. So those two things are interacting. There's a question about whether the coalition will reunite. That, of course, then interacts with the Liberal leadership question, not to mention the Nationals leadership question. And then finally, one nation has been very, very heavily foreshadowing a huge announcement. It was going to be today. I think it seems to have shifted to Tuesday at this point. We have some sense of what that will be, but of course we don't know for sure.
- [03:28]
A
Okay, well, let's just walk through them one by one, I guess. I mean, I'm going to ask you to pull out your crystal ball here. Sorry, Sean, but with regards to the coalition reuniting or not, what are your thoughts on whether that might happen and I guess whether Susan Lee might face a leadership spill and if she did, would she survive it? You know, some have been writing about a ballot next week.
- [03:50]
B
Look, on the question of where the coalition lands, I really don't know. And I really don't know because very different noises are being made by different people, and also because the incentives are really misaligned here. I think both the Liberals and the Nationals essentially need each other. They essentially need to be in coalition in order to pitch to Australians that they are parties of government, in order to say that they can actually make the changes that voters need and to be taken seriously. But at the same time, because both of the leaders have kind of stood up for their parties and their respective interests, there's this sense that in backing down to the other party and being too accommodating, that they're potentially weakening themselves. Now, that said, Susan Lee certainly seems to be holding out a bit of an olive branch. The rhetoric on the part of David Littleproud has certainly softened a bit from his earlier stance that the Nationals really couldn't reform with the Liberals as long as Susan Lee was leader. So there are tentative steps towards each other. But then at the same time, you have senior figures like John O'Dunham, who was involved in the events of last week, saying, well, sure, we'd love to join with the Nationals if they're prepared to be part of a coherent opposition, a coherent coalition. But at the moment, they don't seem ready to do that. So you can see that people within both parties, I think, have really divergent views on this. Now, that interacts with the Liberal leadership in an interesting way, which is essentially that Susan Lee can't win. And you can see this from the very beginning of this saga when the Nationals broke away, because Susan Lee said, well, I am going to accept the resignations of three national front benchers who crossed the floor and breach of shadow cabinet solidarity. The Liberals said that was the right decision. Even people who didn't support Susan Lee said, of course she had to do that, she had to stick to shadow cabinet solidarity. But at the same time, the same people were saying, well, this means Susan Lee's leadership is over. So right decision. And yet the, this was the death knell for her. Now, that obviously is logically incoherent, but it speaks to the place that the Liberals have got to, which is essentially that Susan Lee can't win whatever she does. And I think you've seen her along the way. I think there has been a sense since she took over that a large section of the Liberal Party, we're really talking the Conservative part of the Liberal Party, was never really going to take her seriously as leader. I think some of that is about the fact that she's a woman and some of it is about the fact that she is a moderate or perceived to be moderate from the, you know, supported by the moderate faction of the Liberal Party. And this, this is a part of the Liberal Party going back away. You can see this. When Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister in a position of much more authority than an opposition leader, the Conservatives in his party just didn't trust him. They didn't have the sense that he was one of them. And for that reason, even when he did what they wanted, even when he used the same language that used, they didn't, they didn't take it as sincere or genuine. So they, they began pushing to remove him. And really, I think that's been the state of affairs ever since Susan Lee took the job.
- [07:06]
A
And it's probably a testament, I think, to the absolute disarray, not just of the coalition, of course, but of the Liberal Party that we saw Shadow Treasurer Ted o' Brien just over the weekend, refuse to admit that that clandestine, really controversial meeting between Liberal Party senior members of the Liberal Party who were, we all know, who would, you know, try to take on Susan Lee for the leadership of the Liberal Party. And he refused on the insiders program on Sunday to admit that they were talking about when it's open knowledge that that's what they were discussing.
- [07:40]
B
This is the point you get to. When things are this bad, you inevitably end up saying black is white, because almost, what else can you say? I saw Susan Lee Saying last week, well, of course we can fill the front bench entirely from within the Liberal Party because there's, there's a lot of talent.
- [08:00]
A
There's so much talent.
- [08:01]
B
You think, well, the Liberal Party is so small now.
- [08:04]
A
Yeah.
- [08:05]
B
That, that is like almost definitionally not true. So look, this, this is part of the terrible position they're in. And you could see this in, in a poll that came out this morning. It reflects other recent polls, but the, the poll in the, in the Financial Review showing the. That One Nation now commands one in four voters across Australia. I think it is, meanwhile, fewer than one in five people support the coalition. If you are, if you were in Gen X or a baby boomer, like, if you are within that segment, let's say over 47, you are more likely to support One Nation than any other party at this point. I mean, these are really stunning figures and really damning for the Liberal Party.
- [08:49]
A
Yeah, I think I was seeing one analyst write that Pauline Hanson is the most popular political leader in the country.
- [08:55]
B
That's right. I think her approval numbers overall are now better than anyone's, including the Prime Minister's. Now, we need to put a huge caveat around this. I don't think these numbers are likely to be permanent. One Nation haven't really proved themselves to be a stable party. They've never proved themselves to be a remotely stable party. People are always coming and going into One Nation. They haven't proved themselves to be a party capable of formulating a comprehensive policy platform. But obviously we're beginning to see defections of people from the coalition. Barnaby Joyce was a really significant factor. If we do see other people defect this week, that will add to that sense of momentum around One Nation. I don't think One Nation will be a very, very, very serious force as long as Pauline Hanson is leader. But you can see them heading that way. And I saw Tony Barry, a former Liberal strategist quoted in the Financial Review, saying, well, look, perhaps there is a cap on One Nation support. And of course that's true, that there's just a huge group of Australians who will never say they'll support one nation. But if a few more people head over to One Nation, at this point, there is a point at which the coalition appears unsalvageable.
- [10:09]
A
Okay. Now, you said earlier on in the episode that One Nation, you know, had been foreshadowing some great big announcements. And, you know, we've been hearing rumblings that Alex Antick, a senator from South Australia who was, I think, until quite recently, very powerful in the Liberal Party in that state that he might be the next defection to one nation. So is that this big announcement or is it something else? What are you hearing?
- [10:31]
B
Look, I. I really don't know. There's been rumours since late last year about the next defection. People have known there would be another defection. Lots of names have been tossed around. I hadn't heard those names until now. Cory Bernardi is the other person being mentioned. Both of those would be really significant. Cory Bernardi, not because he's a reasonable politician, but because he has a high profile. Alex Antick, because he has in the last few years been enormously influential within the South Australian Liberal Party. So I think they would be not quite as significant, I think, as James Ashby, Pauline Hansen's chief of staff, has been touting them to be, but pretty significant. And of course, we don't know that it will end with. With those two, if those two are, in fact, the names that have been rumored.
- [11:26]
A
We'll be right back. Okay, now I really want to get into what you've just written about, which I think is so fascinating, and I think it's, you know, probably flown under the radar outside of yourself amid all of this, you know, potential chaos. And that's the major changes that the government may be plotting. So what have you heard?
- [11:50]
B
Yeah, I. I just think there are. Look, sometimes politics is about following the breadcrumbs. I think there have been some interesting breadcrumbs just in the last few days, coincidentally, I think, coming out at the same time. AOP National Secretary Paul Erickson, very influential, very close to Anthony Albanese, generally fairly discreet in what he says, said you will see some pretty substantial contributions over the coming months from the PM and from the treasurer and the lead up to the budget that will set that out. He said that in a long profile of him in the Australian Financial Review is right at the end of that piece, which is an interesting piece. It's worth reading. And then he said as well that the government has a real sense that 2026 provides a serious opportunity for reform. Now, those are both two pretty strong quotes from somebody who is generally fairly restrained. And then you add them to the fact that the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, in a separate piece, said that he was impatient for reform and that housing was a defining element of the intergenerational challenge, and that these, along with a few other things, are the sorts of lenses through which we view the budget. And then he made similar comments, actually, in another piece that was published in the Monthly, an interview he did with The Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. So obviously housing intergenerational equality in the mix for the budget. Not an entire surprise because these were the topics that came out of the economic reform summit in August last year. But a lot of people have been saying momentum from that summit seem to have stalled, that we haven't really heard much since. There's been a bit of a sense that perhaps it was a damp squib. So I think it is really interesting that the treasurer is bringing those elements up again, but it's happening at the same time as Paul Erickson is talking about Tim Chalmers making some substantial contributions in the lead up to the budget. It's just beginning to sound as though we might have some important announcements heading our way. And that's interesting as well, because Anthony Albanese in his first term did the difficult stuff. In the second year, he pursued the referendum for the indigenous voice to Parliament and he broke his promise on the Stage three tax cut successfully, I would say, you know, he sold that to the people. And actually, Jim Chalmers in that piece with the Monthly does refer to the way that Anthony Albanese sold that broken promise that he got over the fact that labor had changed its mind because he spoke to the people rather than down to the people. And I think that's interesting because labor in the past has ruled out various tax changes, especially around housing. So that might be a tiny little hint as well. But my overall point is that it wouldn't surprise me at all because prime ministers get into habits if labor again did the tough stuff in the second year of this term. So this budget coming up could be really interesting.
- [14:57]
A
Okay. I mean, do you have any ideas beyond those tiny little hints what, you know, these important announcements might be? Because we know that this is a government that's long been criticized in particular Albanese for being timid in his ambition and for failing to undertake, you know, major, let's say, tax reform. So could we see something like major tax reform or something changes to negative gearing, which has obviously been, you know, long been wanted, but so contentious. You know, we know that Jim Chalmers, he's just said that he's impatient for reform. I think he's long been impatient for reform. So I guess, yeah. What might these important announcements like what are sort of some of the more obvious candidates or something that might actually be announced look?
- [15:39]
B
Great question. It is always important to be a little bit circumspect around reading these tea leaves and following these breadcrumbs because sometimes governments talk big and don't follow through I absolutely don't know. It is worth recalling that Peter Harcher wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age last year that Jim Chalmers was interested in reforming negative gearing, that of course, he'd have to convince the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues. Chalmers is always very careful and has been lately as well in talking about tax reform. To say anything will have to have the full support of cabinet. And he uses similar formulations around tax reform each time. So there's certainly nothing dramatic being foreshadowed. But you would have to think negative gearing must at least be in the mix of considerations. But look, it might be more on the supply side, which the government has been talking a lot about for the last couple of years. That is, it might be more around encouraging the building of homes, which is something Chalmers mentioned. It might be incentives in that area. I certainly think housing is going to be a significant issue this year, and that is hardly a surprise. But I think it's particularly important right now because of the rise of one nation. We suddenly have this question around, well, what is driving anxieties around immigration? And we know from various studies, including the Scanlon Foundation Social Cohesion Report, that concerns around housing affordability and around economic stability, economic health in the economy feed directly into questions voters have about immigration. So I think it would make a lot of sense for both of the major parties, the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, to be pursuing housing, not just in its own right as a really significant thing, but as a kind of way to head off Australians fears of immigration, to head off the rise of the far right in this country. And while it is easy to see the rise of one nation only as a threat to the Liberal Party, it is important to note that Labor's primary vote remains low in polling and at the last election, and that labor is also very vulnerable to having votes peeled off it.
- [18:04]
A
That's so interesting. And Sean, just to wrap up, I mean, the budget, the federal budget is still a few months away, so presumably a lot of it would have been, if not decided already, then certainly that it would have been great headway there. Do you think that in terms of how bold or not bold the government is with regards to, say, housing or negative gearing or whatever other major changes that they might be considering, do you think any of that is contingent on, I guess, just how much disarray the coalition remains in? You know what I mean? Like, obviously, they may reunite on February 9, they might not. There's all kinds of leadership questions. Do you think that the government will be watching just how much chaos and lack of unity there is there in terms of whether it sort of gives them the impetus to be bold or not.
- [18:49]
B
Yeah, look, I always think that the coalition's chaos really cuts both ways in terms of the government's ambition. A lot of people will say, well, the government has a huge majority and the coalition is in chaos, therefore the government has enormous room to do whatever it likes, you know, to really take the bold steps that in its heart of heart, as perhaps it wants to take, but it has so far been a bit cautious about taking. But the opposite argument is that governments always need to be pushed to do things really, that their default mode is risk aversion. And unless you have an opposition kind of nipping at their heels, they're unlikely to act as strongly as they would otherwise. So I really do think that cuts both ways. I don't think the government's going to be paying enough enormous amount of attention to the coalition, except perhaps after the budget, to see which measures it can get through. I think the much more important factor is going to be this inflation question. It is definitely true that inflation, the cost of living crisis, got in the way of labor pursuing more ambitious reforms in its first term. And that's a legitimate political decision. I think if inflation really does start heading up, up again, that could be seen as a barrier. But at some point, labor will have to ask itself then. There is always something, there's always some reason not to do these things. Are we just going to have to, you know, close our eyes and jump?
- [20:19]
A
Oh, wow. Such a fascinating space to watch. Well, always appreciate your commentary. So thank you so much, Sean, for your time.
- [20:26]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [20:39]
A
In other news today, Qantas has launched expanded premium economy seating on domestic flights, which will offer customers paying more for their flights, reserved overhead baggage space, ensuring they get first dibs on those coveted bins. New data from the Australian Electoral Commission shows that some of Australia's biggest political donors last year chose to pour their millions into minor parties, independents or third party campaign outfits, including Clive Palmer, who gave about $53 million to the Trumpet of Patriots and a former Sunrise producer who is suing Channel seven for compensation after he suffered serious injuries from falling out of his wheelchair, has been accused of misogynistic behavior while at the network. Today's episode was produced by Julia Carr Catzel. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow the MORNING Edition and leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.
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C
Quick break. One useful thing to share. I thought TikTok was just dances. Turns out it's where I learned how to save money, fix stuff, and get real tips. Short videos, real people. Download TikTok now.