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- [00:02]
A
I'm Jacqueline Maley and you're listening to Inside Politics from the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. A very big Sydney hello to our chief political correspondent, Paul Sakal, who's joining us from the Canberra studio as usual.
- [00:15]
B
Morning, Jack. How are you?
- [00:17]
A
I'm very well, thank you, Paul. I just want to check in briefly on the budget for our listeners. The last time we talked about it, we were in what I called our budget backlash era. And now we've moved to some sort of other era, I think, which is like begrudge resignation or, I don't know, budget fatigue. But you had a story this week about some changes that the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, might make to the cutting back of the capital gains tax concessions that they announced in the budget. Tell us what the government is thinking about doing.
- [00:45]
B
Yeah, you're right. We definitely have moved into a new phase. The media cycle's moved on a bit from the budget. There is still stories every day in various papers about different groups who are complaining about various elements of the budget, be it the trust element, charities, how it might affect biotech sectors. So the backlash is real and will continue. But the focus has gone on to one nation, which we've been kind of locked into for months now, but we'll get onto that in a second. Yeah, so the story I had this week, Jack, was around this carve out that the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has been hinting at for weeks. People will remember on budget night, the government said that they would consult with the startup and tech sector about how this new CGT was model might affect businesses with a low cost base, high growth businesses. This is one of the key concerns around the budget, that it might actually stifle the incentives for people to build a new business. And what the government's looking at is potentially retaining the old 50% capital gains tax discount, the Howard era model that they've shifted away from for certain businesses, which, without going into huge technical detail, might suffer under the new model. This would be to try and ameliorate the concern that the changes might hamper business investment. The government's also looking at expanding the capital gains tax exemptions that already exist for companies with turnover of less than $2 million. They might push that up to somewhere, possibly in the $5 million region. I don't know where they'll push it to so that they can effectively tell the community all of these smaller mum and dad businesses and various other, you know, shop strip businesses, we're not coming after you. Don't listen to the scare campaign. They're Also probably going to unwind an element around discretionary testamentary trusts which have been turned into a death tax scare campaign by the Liberal Party. Arguably misleadingly or falsely Liberal Party would say fairly. So it's an attempt to kind of tamp down some of the concern around the budget.
- [02:39]
A
Yep. Okay. And so presumably pretty soon they'll announce whatever tweaks they're going to make to their, to what they announced in the budget and maybe as you say, exempting particularly startup business businesses from the axing of the CGT discount. So when are they likely to present their budget measures in legislation before the parliament?
- [02:57]
B
So the week after next and then the week after that the government will try and ram this legislation through. So we're a week and a bit away from those sitting weeks. There'll be a very short two day inquiry which has been widely panned by Teals, Greens business groups, various others, and then we'll see the legislation put through the Senate in the week after that. And there'll be some really intriguing wrangling with the Greens and the coalition to see where the government can strike a deal. The Prime Minister is personally very confident that the Greens will cave eventually and not open themselves up to a. What will be a really strong line from the government that the Greens are standing in the way of progressive reform, as they did last term on housing, which labor used against them successfully.
- [03:41]
A
Yep. And Paul, the other big story, and really the only story in politics right now is the growing rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation. At the beginning of the week, we saw yet another poll, news poll, showing that One Nation was out polling labor and the coalition as opposed to just the coalition. And then on Wednesday this week, Hanson launched a big fundraising campaign called Fire the Liar, which was a website, basically, and they sought donations and they claim to have raised $1.6 million from that by Thursday, which is absolutely extraordinary. It's a pretty good time to be Pauline Hanson, isn't it?
- [04:15]
B
It's really good. I didn't know it had gone to 1.6. I thought it was like 800,000 yesterday when I left work. Bloody hell.
- [04:21]
A
That's what's being reported as of Thursday morning. So, I mean, and as we say, that's what they claim to have raised. They haven't actually declared that through the normal channels yet. And they're not, they don't have to.
- [04:31]
B
But yeah, and I know there were journalists, not me, but some of my colleagues and other outlets yesterday, trying to interrogate this website which is like, it looks like a gofundme page and the numbers tick over. There's a claim the government on Wednesday afternoon was saying in, you know, in harsh tones that they believe that this was like a fake website, effectively where the numbers just ticked up based on time, not based on anything else. So there's some conjecture around it.
- [04:56]
A
Yeah, we want to make that really clear that it's not verified and it hasn't been declared yet. So formally. So that's just what One Nation is saying they've raised.
- [05:03]
B
It wouldn't surprise. I mean, well, just before we get onto One Nation, I just thought like you've followed Canberra politics for a while, Jack. Can you ever recall a period where polling sets the media narrative up so frequently? I feel like there is a poll now, whether it's any one of the four major newspapers, Sky News, some of the tabloids have polls now, some of the smaller media outlets like Capital Brief, there's a poll that sets up the agenda every Monday and we spend two days talking about the rise of one nation. It's quite a. I feel like it's a new feature.
- [05:35]
A
I mean I feel like this, this definitely happened a lot during the Gillard government when they were just tanking in the polls and it certainly happened to Tony Abbott. I mean, you know, polling, the politicians always say that they don't take any notice of it but they certainly exploit it whenever they can. And with something like this, I think it is quite amazing. It's become quite self perpetuating. Like the more we report on the polling, the more people are like, oh that's pretty credible. Other people are doing it. You know, I'll add my name to in the One Nation column. I feel like that's happening. But that alone does not deliver votes. It doesn't, you know, it certainly doesn't deliver necessarily donations. Whether or not they can convert all of this surge in support and apparently in even financial support into votes for credible candidates that they may or may not be able to put up is another question. I mean, I want to move on. You spoke to opposition leader Angus Taylor this week and he made these sort of strange comments that he thought the budget had hurt the coalition somehow because it was bleeding votes, helping the vote bleed to one Nation, which made him sound a bit silly. There's no doubt that labor is under pressure from One Nation as well. But it's not existential to spare like the coalition is in at the moment. No. Is there any sense that Taylor has been able to staunch the blini at all or at least do a better job than Susan Lee.
- [06:57]
B
Well, the basis for the leadership change in February was expressed most clearly by James Paterson, the front bencher who was key to the move. And he said, this is a change or die moment. We've bled x thousand votes each month under Susan Lee and things have to change. And at that point, the newspoll primary vote which was used to justify the move was at 18% for the coalition. Angus Taylor increased that vote steadily over the space of the first couple of months into the low to mid 20s in some polls. So he'd stopped the bleeding and started to reverse course slowly and build up credibility again and do some policy work and get the team united, which he did do. But now they're back at 18% again. And as I think we said here last week, the expectation post Labor's budget was that a big high tax in broken promise budget would naturally lead vote back to the coalition. It hasn't done that. So our assumptions have been shattered about the normal way that politics works. And Angus Taylor's comments on Monday to our paper, as you say, were that the reason for the low primary vote and the sinking coalition primary vote was that Labor's bad budget had created discontent around the Canberra political establishment. It had broken faith with voters and that that had effectively rubbed off on both the major parties, which had been seen in the eyes of disillusioned voters as one and the same. You know, one nation has this quite effective line out in the community that there's a, quote, uni party, labor and Liberal, exactly the same. They're both out to get you and we're your true alternative. So Angus Taylor has kind of legitimised that by saying that Labor's bad budget has somehow hurt him. Now, his colleagues were quite mixed in their views on those comments. Some thought it was quite a weak comment to make. Others kind of agreed with him, but thought it probably was not worth saying out loud. There were quite mixed views on it.
- [08:44]
A
I mean, he might well be right, actually. But that doesn't mean, as you say, that he should have said it out loud because he's not taking any responsibility for the fact that the vote of the party that he leads is still tanking. Newly appointed Liberal Party president Tony Abbott has been out and about. He was spotted having dinner with former Liberal donor Angus Atkin, who's a stockbroker, very wealthy stockbreaker, who switched his allegiance to One Nation. Angus Atkin and his wife donated 1 million to one Nation, and they were formerly Liberal Party donors. So he must be trying to woo back. I mean, one can Surmise that perhaps he's trying to woo back some of that money to Liberal coff. He's said that he's going to do a listening tour, branch meetings, and he gave a speech in Washington where he's talked about the Liberals woes and mistakes. He's everywhere. He seems to have provided some fresh energy to the Liberals and perhaps he's revved up the base. But I mean, how successful is he likely to be in actually helping to resurrect the Liberal Party vote? And is he really the man who's going to lead the Liberals and the coalition out of this malaise, given the baggage he brings with him and given, you know, he's a very effective politician in some ways or political operator, but he's not, I would say, not particularly good at. He doesn't have a track record of bringing people along with him in a broad coalition.
- [09:58]
B
Well, if the, if the aim for Abbott was to rally the Conservative base and try and bring social and cultural conservatives back in the coalition tent, I understood it and so did even quite a few moderates in the party. There is a logical coherence there. This is a person who is respected in that part of the community and quite adored by Liberal Party branch members who are considering or have already flocked to one nation. The big risk with Abbott was that he would become involved in day to day political debate, take attention away from the opposition leader and cause shadow cabinet ministers to become answerable for the comments he made. He insisted he wouldn't do this and there were kind of, you know, oblique warnings from people like James Patterson and Tim Wilson and others who insisted in the early days after he was elected that it was an administrative role. They're trying to diminish the role of president to keep him in his box. And the first comment that Abbott made that cut across this idea that he would stick in his lane was on, I think it was Tuesday morning when he gave a very short quote to the Australian Financial Review on the prospect of a preference deal with one nation. We're two years away from an election. The conversation around preferences is very problematic for the coalition because one nation voters, if they hear a coalition MP distancing themselves from one, are often saying, why are you pushing Hanson away? Work with her to defeat Labor. On the other hand, if they do submit to one nation, there is a chance they are fairly characterised by labor as only being able to govern in coalition with one nation, which is a highly damaging prospect for middle of the ground voters and swinging Liberal labor voters. So Abbott's Comment on Tuesday just raised up this debate. He almost made a comment which was a truism which is that we put the right wing parties ahead of the left wing ones. They've done that at several recent. It's been a long time, decades since the coalition preferenced one nation last. A lot has changed. If they did that their own Conservative voters would probably revolt against them. So there's not much expectation that they would. But just by raising up this debate, it was widely viewed in the party room as a really unhelpful comment from Abbott and has raised this concern about his role.
- [12:11]
A
Well, I mean this is what I find interesting about it because it has sort of dominated discussion. I think actually ordinary voters and maybe low information voters actually don't know very well how our preference system works. So they do often follow how to vote cards which is what we talk about when we, what we're really talking about when we're talking about doing preference deals. You know, 30 years ago former Prime Minister John Howard famously said he would not preference one nation or he'd preference some last but as you say a lot has changed and I think John Howard's changed his view but within the coalition this, these comments by Tony Abbott seem to have kicked off even more divisions. So you've got now Tony Passen who's a, you know, a very, very sort of hard conservative from South Australia within the Liberal ranks of Liberal MP saying, making comments to the Australian on Thursday saying that you know, not only should they do preference deals but they should actually work out with one nation basically do a seat, carve up and say we won't, the Liberals won't contest this seat. One nation can have that seat but you know, in return the Liberals will contest this seat without any one nation competition. Now that's you're talking there about really a low sea lowercase C coalition between the Liberals or the coalition and one nation which is extraordinary. It's been raised before by some hard right members of the coalition and others have shot it down. How's that gone down those comments?
- [13:36]
B
Well you're right, they were seen as extraordinary when this story went up on Wednesday evening. Coalition MPs were sending it around to one another and they were gobsmacked. There is a big difference between what Abbott is talking about which is closer coordination on preferences, emulating the Labor Greens model which has been super success flow on the left to create more disciplined preference flows. There's a big difference between that and what Pason, who's a shadow cabinet member, close ally of Angus Taylor, a polarising figure in the party room from South Australia, represents a Conservative regional seat which just got dominated by one nation at a state level. He's effectively argued that the coalition and one nation should get together and split up the seats so that they're not running against one another. That's pretty much what the Nationals and Liberal Party do now.
- [14:23]
A
Yeah.
- [14:23]
B
And so that comment was, you know, one of three remarks, sets of remarks this week. First the Taylor remarks to me, then the Abbott comment to the Australian Financial Review and then the Pason comments which were seen by, you know, observers in the coalition as just being expressions of the sign of confusion in coalition ranks. But the passing comments, the passing comments are the most clear expression of the panic that's seen because they for the first time it was alright. The implicit message there is we can't win this election alone. We've got to work with one nation. Labor's been arguing for weeks and months that the Liberal One National Party, as Albanese has taken to calling it, is the future of right wing politics. It's a highly damaging argument and Pasan legitimised it through those comments.
- [15:13]
A
Yeah, that's what I find so interesting that they can't get their lines straight on one nation. And we've known for a long time that one nation has been, you know, the resurgence of one nation is very, very difficult for the coalition to deal with. There's some people within, you know, liberal ranks who kind of despise everything that one nation stands for. You know, the remaining moderates and even people like James Paterson who is not a moderate, he's a conservative, you know, he's a very well respected member of their shadow cabinet and he has previously given speeches saying that, you know, basically they should completely distance themselves from everything that one nation stands for. We should say Angus Taylor came out and said there's absolutely no plan to basically carve up seats with nation. And James Patterson went on radio on Thursday morning and really pushed back against it as well. But as you say, this is playing into both the hands of one nation, which is basically like it just looks like it's in the ascendancy and it's almost got the coalition coming to it cap in hand, saying, hey, will you do business with us? Can we have a little bit of your success please? And then the labor government, Albanese is able to say, well you're all the same, you're the Liberal One National Party. So they're almost turning that one nation line about the UNI parties onto the right wing parties. I Mean, it's a mess, isn't it?
- [16:24]
B
It's a diabolical situation for the coalition. I mean, if they drop two points in the next poll and One Nation increases by one point, they'll be polling at half One Nation's support. So what all of these sets of comments display this week is that there is total paralysis and confusion on the path forward. And there's a new party director in place, Lincoln Follo, who's about to start conducting some research on how to turn this around. But it's quite clear at this stage that there is no consensus on how to have this fight. Andrew Hastie, the front bencher, came out this week and started attacking Pauline Hansen on the basis of her fervent support for Donald Trump. That was criticised by Sky News commentators and not the path forward. There's a bunch of different ideas on how to take on Hanson, but they're all still being germinated. So one nation is totally ascendant at this stage. None of the normal rules seem to apply. Most people are not talking about Angus Taylor being removed as leader. People want to give him some time, but nobody yet is clear on how long this will take to turn around, if it will turn around the extent to which it will. And so in some darker corners of the corridors in Canberra, some Coalition MPs are wondering to themselves whether the future configuration of right wing politics will necessitate some sort of looser alliance between the coalition and One nation. But nobody wants to put that forward yet because as we've just said, it's a damaging prospect. But then Pasan just said the quiet bit out loud.
- [17:46]
A
It's just, I mean, this is Menzies great party. This is the part, you know, supposed to be a party of government that, you know, that captures the aspirations of middle Australia and middle class Australians and it seems it's edging sort of ever further to the sort of more right extreme of our politics. Meanwhile, you know, Anthony Albanese and the labor government, I mean, they're not out of the woods either. Pauline Hanson has been in WA talking about the seats at the labor seats she'd like to target there. There is a whole bunch of seats, particularly in Queensland, labor seats that one nation could have a good old crack at. What's your sense of what the Albany and obviously this fire the liar campaign is very incendiary, I would say, very divisive and quite nasty language, which I personally dislike and I hate to see the return of because, you know, Julia Gillard was always called a liar and that just Led to so much vitriol, personal vitriol, against her. I mean, what's the sort of Albanese government response on a more sort of structural level to this stuff?
- [18:46]
B
Well, it might be inflammatory language, to use the term liar, as you say, but the government opened themselves up to that when they broke such clear core promises for an election. That was just a year ago, I thought. There was a really intriguing press conference by the Prime Minister on Monday in his courtyard in Canberra. It was kind of a more general conversation about where the country was at, his future agenda, the populist moment, how voters were feeling and the disillusionment out there. And I thought it was as important for what he didn't say as it was for what he did say. In previous weeks, when asked about one nation, he would often make, you know, points of ridicule about the opposition, effectively saying, angus Taylor's job is on the line, making fun of the fact that one nation is cannibalising his traditional opponent. There really wasn't any of that in this Monday press conference. It was a more sombre, serious prime minister making a pitch to maintain faith in, you know, mainstream politics. He said the economy is, despite having challenges, still fundamentally okay. We have a stable legal system. We are one of the most, you know, successful democracies on earth. We still have a lot going for us. He used Richard Scolier, the Australian of the year who recently passed, to make this argument. He said, richard Scollier is the best of us. Let's stay united, not be divided effectively. The message was, things are hard, but stick with this government. We are fighting for you still. And I thought that was intriguing because the prime minister has a pattern of, you know, he can be glib on issues until they really become clear to him as risks that affect his political fortunes. And Labor's vote is now in the high 20s and early 30s in most polls. That's very, very low. About 5 or 6 percentage points of Labor's primary vote has gone to one nation that could keep growing because we don't. We should just admit that we don't know what one nation's ceiling is anymore. We made predictions previously and they've all been wrong. We've been wrong so many times. And so he's now clearly in his own mind, grappling with this moment in a more serious way and thinking about how he counters the one nation rise to stop it eating into his base. Yeah, but you're right, it is not nowhere near as existential. It's not existential for labor when it is for the coalition, but it is still a genuine threat to Labor.
- [20:59]
A
Yeah. And you can see. I mean, I think you can see that cabinet ministers start to get a little bit worried about it. Penny Wong was on the radio on Thursday and she was sort of saying, you know, that she doesn't want to. Cause her face was used in this. Fire the liar. Yeah. So she was asked about that and she said she just doesn't want to get into personal politics, but she wants to stick to talking about policies. And, you know, the fact that she said that one nation doesn't have any policy solutions to any of the problems they raise. So, I mean, that seems to be the line that Labor's taking. You know, let's get back to what they. What actual solutions they have, what policies do they have, what do they have to say on health policy, what do they have to say on education policy, et cetera. So they're bringing it back to basics. We'll see if it works. It may. May not. Inflation is still pretty thorn. People are under a lot of pressure. You know, these things make people feel that the system isn't working for them and it really, really upsets people, I think, and makes them anxious. So, yeah, it's tough times out there. Anyway, thanks for talking. That was very interesting. And we will, of course, be updating and checking in and talking about it all again next week.
- [22:07]
B
I realise that I don't know if I've told either you or our producers this, but I'm about to go to the World cup, so you won't see me for a couple of weeks. I probably should have flagged this earlier.
- [22:19]
A
Is this for business or pleasure? Paul Sakal?
- [22:22]
B
Pure pleasure.
- [22:23]
A
Okay.
- [22:23]
B
You're a soccer guy, I'm a soccer guy. The country needs to get around the socceroos, but they've just. They're a bit of a forgotten brand at the moment.
- [22:30]
A
We're such Matilda stands in our house that we just don't. I don't know if we have room in our hearts, but the Matildas are too good.
- [22:37]
B
They've just killed the blokes.
- [22:38]
A
Yeah, I know. It's a terrible thing. Anyway, enjoy that.
- [22:41]
B
They're great, the Matildas.
- [22:42]
A
Enjoy Vancouver. It's in Vancouver. I.
- [22:44]
B
Right, yeah. Vancouver, Seattle and then California.
- [22:48]
A
Enjoy. All right. We'll miss you. We'll see you in a few weeks.
- [22:51]
B
See you in a couple of weeks.
- [22:56]
A
You can read all of our political news on our websites, theage.com or smh.com Today's episode was produced by Chee Wong. With help from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tami Mac, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. Before you go, follow Inside Politics and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you for listening.