Politics With Michelle Grattan podcast

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Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Michelle Grattan, Chief Political Correspondent at The Conversation, talks politics with politicians and experts.

360 episodes

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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updated about a year ago

Series home•Feed

Michelle Grattan, Chief Political Correspondent at The Conversation, talks politics with politicians and experts.

360 episodes

#Australian Politics #News #Politics #Conversations #Im An Expert

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Politics with Michelle Grattan

1
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jim Chalmers and Angus Taylor on tax top-ups and budget bottom lines 27:44

5 weeks ago27:44

27:44

Mick Tsikas/AAP As the election starter’s gun is about to be fired, Tuesday’s budget announced modest income tax cuts as the government’s latest cost-of-living measure. The Coalition has opposed the tax relief, with Peter Dutton’s Thursday budget reply to put forward his policy counters on the cost of living. Meanwhile, the domestic economic debate is being conducted as President Donald Trump prepares to unveil more tariffs, which are likely to produce further uncertainty in the world economy. On this podcast we are joined by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor. Chalmers says the government is making every last-minute effort to argue against Australia being hit with more US tariffs. He’s ready to make personal representations if that’s thought useful. I’ve been discussing that with Don Farrell, the minister for trade, whether or not that would be helpful to some of the efforts that he’s currently engaged in. So we’re working as a team on it. We’re working out the best [and] most effective ways to engage with the Americans. Again, speaking up for and standing up for our national interest. We’re not uniquely impacted by the tariffs either already imposed or proposed. But we’ve got a lot of skin in the game here. We’re a trading nation, we generate a lot of prosperity on global markets. A criticism from some about the budget was that climate change wasn’t mentioned explicitly. Chalmers takes issue with that. I would have thought that an extra A$3 billion for green metals, which is about leveraging our traditional strengths and resources, our developing industries and the energy transformation to create something that the world needs, I think that’s a climate change policy. And also the Innovation Fund, another $1.5 billion or so for the Innovation Fund in terms of sustainable aviation fuels, that’s a climate policy and also we’re recapitalising another couple of billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. So in every budget, we’ve made new investments in climate change and in energy and this week’s budget was no different in that regard. Angus Taylor is scathing about Labor’s “top-up” tax cuts, which were the budget’s centrepiece, saying: A government that has overseen an unprecedented collapse in our living standards, unrivalled by any other country in the world, and they’re trying to tell Australians that 70 cents a day, more than a year from now, is a solution to that problem? It’s laughable, it is not even going to touch the sides, it’s Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It’s a cruel hoax. And frankly, the idea that this is good government is absolutely laughable. On what change of approach a Coalition government would take, Angus Taylor points to the “fiscal rules that we adhered to when we were last in government”. They were on the back of the rules that were established in the Charter of Budget Honesty that was established by Peter Costello in the 1990s to make sure your economy grows faster than your spending. That doesn’t mean spending doesn’t grow, it just means your economy grows faster. So both of those things matter, a faster growing economy and managing your spending so that it’s not growing faster. Jim Chalmers doesn’t get that. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Barbara Pocock on the Greens’ policy priorities 33:00

7 weeks ago33:00

33:00

Mick Tsikas/AAP The Greens have heaped a lot of pressure on the government during this term, from issues of the environment, housing, and Medicare, to the war in the Middle East. With the polls close to a dead heat and minority government appearing a real possibility, would the Greens push a minority Labor government even harder in pursuit of their agenda? To talk about the Greens’ policies and prospects, we’re joined by South Australian Greens senator Barbara Pocock, who is the party’s spokeswoman on employment, the public sector and finance. After their efforts in this term, Pocock says the Greens would be just as tough in pushing a possible Labor minority government next term: People can judge us on our record in the last few years. People saw us really fight hard on housing – we wanted to see something meaningful. It is the most significant post-war crisis in housing that is affecting millions of Australians’ lives and certainly an intergenerational crisis. So we held out for a long time to try and push Labor to improve its offering on public housing [and] on housing spending and we achieved some real wins there. We will fight hard for the things that matter. We will push very hard on those core issues of a better health system, putting dental into Medicare. We pushed very hard on that in the last time there was a minority government and won it for kids. We want to see everyone be able to get to the dentist, and we really want to see reductions in student debt. However, Pocock stresses that keeping Peter Dutton out of government remains a key focus: We are very focused on preventing a Dutton Coalition government, because everything we hear from that stable sends a shiver down my spine. Pocock did a lot of work during the Senate inquiry investigating consulting services and she warns Dutton’s policy to cut 36,000 public servants would lead to a return to consultants: In that last year of the Morrison government, we saw a spend of $20 billion on consulting and labour hire and a hollowing out in the public sector. We are still seeing a slow regrowth of the capability of the federal public sector following the scandals relating to the consulting industry and the way it worked with government. I am very worried about the Coalition’s proposals for a 36,000 cut in the public sector. That’s one in five public sector workers gone and that means services like Centrelink, Veterans Affairs, services that Australians depend on cannot deliver on what they suggest. And we also need to remember that a very significant number – something like two-thirds of our public service, federal public service – actually live outside Canberra. All they would be doing is taking that money, which pays for public servants, doing a whole range of many different things and taking it across to, in many cases, their supporters and buddies and donors in the consulting and labour hire industry and it’s a very bad value-for-money proposition for the Australian voter. As spokeswoman on employment, Pocock is a strong advocate for the Greens policies on a four-day work week: If we go right back to 1856 when Australia led the world on reducing working hours, and the eight-hour day, now we were the first to adopt that internationally for stonemasons in Melbourne. And in the last 40 years, [we] have not seen any reduction in average working time. It’s been 38 hours now since 1983. In that 40 years, we’ve seen massive changes in technology. We have seen increases in productivity. And in the last 10 years, we’ve seen private profit increase by 97% while wages have gone up by 50%. And what we’re saying is, let’s look at the length of the average full-time working week and let’s see how we can move the dial on that. We’d certainly like to see a wide range of pilots, diverse experimentation, real change, working with those who are ready for it, who are up for it, but making sure we collect the evidence and then move over time towards a national test case, which is the way in which over decades we have slowly ratcheted back the length of the working week. On the attack from the opposition and others that the Greens are anti-Semitic, Pocock defends the Greens as an anti-racist party. I think there are diverse views out there in the community and certainly, and we can see it every day, but I think that there are also many people, including many Jewish people, who understand that you can have a critique of a war that’s had such a terrible consequence for civilian women and children in Gaza, and you can still take a very strong position in relation to the kinds of attacks we’ve seen on the Jewish community, for example. We are an anti-racist party. We want to call out behaviour which is wrong wherever it happens and we have certainly been critical of the behaviour of the Israeli state, their military, and the way they continue to conduct a war against the civilians in Gaza. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Peter Dutton on why he’s not Australia’s Trump – ‘I’m my own person’ 45:49

7 weeks ago45:49

45:49

Diego Fedele/AAP On current opinion polls, we are looking at a very close race at the May election. As voting day draws near, Peter Dutton will face more forensic questioning about his policies and how he would run government. At the same time, he’s fending off Labor’s attempt to define him as Trumpian. The opposition leader joined the podcast to discuss what a Dutton government would look like and how he would tackle problems both domestically and abroad. On his main priorities would be, Dutton says: I want to be a prime minister for home ownership. We’ve announced a plan which will create 500,000 new homes. I want young Australians to be able to achieve that dream of home ownership. I want to make sure that we have a safe and secure country. Not much else matters if people don’t feel safe in their own homes and if we feel vulnerable as a country. I want to make sure that we’ve got a back to basics economic agenda so that people can afford to pay the bills in their own households and small businesses can stay afloat and help contribute to growth in the economy. So, they would be three areas that I would see as a priority and ways in which we could change the country for the better. Asked if Australians would be better off in three years’ time under a Dutton government, Dutton says, The short answer is “yes”. On government waste, Dutton outlines the need to reduce the size of government: there’s been phenomenal growth in the public service. Why? Because the government’s trying to please the Commonwealth Public Service Union. It’s not about service delivery or outcome. There are 36,000 new public servants at a cost of about $6 billion a year. Now, that is a staggering amount of money that is going into the economy, and it should be spent on either debt reduction or helping get the budget back into balance. We’ve supported the government in cutting back on some of the concerns in [the] NDIS and making aged care more sustainable so that there is a recurrent built-in save year-on-year compounding in those two areas. […] And so we can identify areas where we can have better outcomes, and I think Australians, frankly, expect that from a Liberal government, and that’s what we would do. Wouldn’t consultancy fill any gap left by cutting public servants? If you’ve got a good skill set within the public service, then there’s no need to bring in additional outside support. But if you can spend money more efficiently by investing in an efficient delivery mechanism, then that is something that you would do. On the government’s relationship with the Trump administration, Dutton leaves the door open to replacing current US Ambassador Kevin Rudd, and doesn’t scotch the idea of appointing Scott Morrison, Well, I’m interested in making sure that the incumbent can do his job to the best possible degree and making sure that that’s in our country’s best interests. I think that’s the default position. We’ve got an incumbent in the position. I think the ambassador’s there for another 18 months or so, and I hope for our country’s sake, that he’s able to achieve what he hasn’t been able to achieve to date and I hope that there can be engagement. It is quite remarkable that neither the prime minister nor Ambassador Rudd have been able to secure even a phone call. So what about the possibility of making Morrison ambassador? Well, I’ve got a high regard for Scott Morrison. I’ve got a high regard for a number of other colleagues and others. If there was a vacancy, then you could consider other applicants or other people for that job – but at the moment, there is no vacancy. I think the important aspect is to lend every assistance to the ambassador because obviously he’s struggling at the moment. Talking about the criticism from Labor and others that he is aping Donald Trump, Dutton says. I’m my own person […] I was able to stand up to Trump [after Trump’s criticism of President Zelensky] and I think that’s one of the important qualities in the next prime minister of our country. I want to make sure that I stand up for my values. I base my political instinct more on John Howard and Peter Costello than I do on President Trump, with all due respect to him and to other world leaders. On fears that the American economy could fall into recession, Dutton outlines why Australia should adapt to the changing global realities, As we know from history, if America has a cold, it’s pretty contagious and economically, that can be devastating for jobs and economic growth in our own economy. So we have to deal with whatever the prevailing economic conditions are, whether the US strengthens or it weakens. That’s been the approach of every predecessor of the prime minister, but it seems that our prime minister is not up to the task of being able to adapt to the prevailing conditions and the prime minister of the day, the government of the day, has to deal with whatever is laid out before him or her and that would be the approach I would take. Full transcript (errors & omissions excepted) MICHELLE GRATTAN: The formal election campaign was delayed by Cyclone Alfred, but the faux campaign continues at full bore, with the opinion polls showing a very close race, and now Donald Trump’s tariffs throwing a new issue into the mix. A few weeks ago, we brought you an interview with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. On today’s podcast, we catch up with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton, Paul Keating used to say, ‘change the government, you change the country’. How would Australia be different under a Dutton government? Can you talk about, say, just three big changes we’d see in a first term? PETER DUTTON: Well, Michelle, I want to be a prime minister for home ownership. We’ve announced a plan which will create 500,000 new homes. I want young Australians to be able to achieve that dream of home ownership. I want to make sure that we have a safe and secure country. Not much else matters if people don’t feel safe in their own homes and if we feel vulnerable as a country. I want to make sure that we’ve got a back to basics economic agenda, so that people can afford to pay the bills in their own households and small businesses can stay afloat and help contribute to growth in the economy. So, they would be three areas that I would see as a priority and ways in which we could change the country for the better. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, just taking up the last one, you’re saying to voters that they’re worse off financially than three years ago. But can you realistically promise that they’ll be better off under a Dutton government in three years’ time? Apart from anything else, the world is just becoming incredibly uncertain. PETER DUTTON: The short answer is yes, and I’d say to people, don’t look just at what politicians say, but what they do. Our track record as a Coalition in government has been a very successful one. John Howard was able to clean up Labor’s mess in 1996, and we were able to do it again after the Rudd-Gillard years, and we’ll have to do it again after the Albanese government. We make rational economic decisions that are in the country’s best interests. There are 27,000 small businesses who have closed their doors under this government’s watch. That didn’t happen when we were in government. So, I think look at the report card and make judgements about who is best able to manage the economy, as you say, in very uncertain times. I honestly believe that the Coalition has a much greater capacity to manage the economy effectively, and that’s what we’ll do if we’re elected. MICHELLE GRATTAN: The Trump administration is now warning that its policies could produce a recession in the United States in the transition period to its new protectionism. What would be the implications of this for the international economy and for Australia, in particular? PETER DUTTON: Well, as we know from history, if America has a cold, it’s pretty contagious. Economically, that can be devastating for jobs and economic growth in our own economy. The government’s ramped up spending dramatically. I don’t think inflation has been dealt with in our country by any stretch of the imagination, and there’s a great prospect of interest rates going up again under a Labor-Greens Government because they’ll spend a lot of money, which will be inflationary. So, we have to deal with whatever the prevailing economic conditions are, whether the US strengthens or it weakens. That’s been the approach of every predecessor of the prime minister, but it seems that our prime minister is not up to the task of being able to adapt to the prevailing conditions. The prime minister of the day, the government of the day, has to deal with whatever is laid out before him or her. That would be the approach I would take. We would default back to our instinctive economic management skills and that’s something that I’m very proud of. MICHELLE GRATTAN: But this does make it hard to give promises and guarantees of things getting better, doesn’t it? PETER DUTTON: Well, I think we have to have an honest conversation with the Australian public about the times in which we live. I think people instinctively get it. People know that China is in a very different place today. The prime minister talks about the risk of China, and he talks about the most precarious position since the second world war, and then he takes money out of defence. We don’t have the urgency that you would expect from a prime minister having made that comment. We live in the most difficult economic circumstances if the tariffs continue to be applied and there could be another wave of tariffs against Australia. We don’t know the answer to that yet. All of that makes for an uncertain period that needs a steady hand and a reliable approach. I believe that that’s what I can deliver as prime minister and what a Coalition government can deliver over the course of the term. MICHELLE GRATTAN: So, on those tariffs, if you were elected, would you make an early trip to Washington? And what would you offer President Trump? And do you think you could obtain an exemption where this government has obviously not been able to, or indeed any other government? PETER DUTTON: Well, the United States is our most important military partner. I don’t agree with what President Trump has done in relation to the tariffs, and I vehemently oppose the tariffs. But the government has to deal with the realities before it. For the prime minister at the moment, not to be able to get a phone call or a detail agreed about a visit to the United States is quite remarkable. So, absolutely, I would make it a priority to engage quickly with the [Trump] administration and not just with the president, but with others with whom we have a relationship in the administration. We need to make sure that we’ve got every touch point covered, as we did in 2018 when the Coalition government was able to negotiate with President Trump in his first administration to gain an exemption. We’re a country with a trade surplus and we have a unique circumstance because of the military alliance and the prime minister hasn’t been able to leverage any of that into an outcome where Australia has been exempted this time. Unfortunately, it’s jobs and economic activity that suffer in our country. So, the short answer is yes, early engagement and an early visit to discuss what a deal looks like with the US. I would make it an absolute priority in my government. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now, Labor says that in its research, people see you as being Trumpian, and don’t some of your policies, for example, your attacks on the public service and the like, reinforce this perception? And indeed, won’t your attacks on the government over the tariff policy play into Labor’s attempt to paint you as a cheerleader for Donald Trump? PETER DUTTON: Well, Michelle, firstly, I’m my own person, and I think you wrote a very good piece, if I might say, the other day, talking about this issue. I think the point, in part, that you made is that I was able to stand up to Trump, and I think that’s one of the important qualities in the next prime minister of our country. I want to make sure that I stand up for my values. The most important influence in my life and the values that I obtained first up in politics came from John Howard and Peter Costello and that was to spend prudently, to make sure that you manage the economy well, that you spend within your means and that you make sure that you can prepare for a rainy day. This government has spent a lot of money, it’s why we’re behind other OECD countries, it’s why interest rates have already started to come down six or eight months earlier than what they did in Australia and it’s why the Reserve Bank governor has pointed out that there is a spending problem with Labor in Australia, both at a state and federal level, which is fuelling inflation. So, I base my political instinct more on John Howard and Peter Costello than I do on President Trump, with all with all due respect to him and to other world leaders. That’s been my experience. MICHELLE GRATTAN: You did call Trump a “big thinker” initially. What are your views on him now? PETER DUTTON: Well, the president obviously has an America First policy, and people think that that’s an election slogan or that it’s rhetoric. But I think that they now realise that it’s being played out and that that is what we will have to negotiate over the course of the next four years. We have to make sure that we’re making decisions in our country’s best interests, that we’re respectful of the points of difference between our two governments, but ultimately find common ground and alignment in relation to national security matters and economic matters and other matters of mutual interest. You need the personal relationships to make that happen. Part of the reason that the government’s faltered in the relationship is because the key players, every one of them, including the prime minister, the foreign minister, the ambassador to the United States, have all made consistent derogatory remarks about the president. I don’t think that has allowed them to have the conversation that I would be able to have with President Trump or my colleagues. In 2018, we found every point of influence within the administration, within the private sector, within think-tanks, to try and influence the outcome that ultimately we were able to achieve to exempt Australia from the tariffs at that point. So, I think we can have a constructive and productive relationship with the president under a new government here in Australia. I know one thing for sure, we have to, in an uncertain time, strengthen the relationship, not weaken it. And unfortunately, through their own words, that’s exactly what Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese have done. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, on personal relationships, obviously Scott Morrison’s got a pretty close relationship with Donald Trump. Would you consider making him ambassador to the United States, if he wanted the job? PETER DUTTON: Well, I’ve made comment before in relation to making sure that we can put every support behind Ambassador Rudd because he’s in the job at the moment and we need to make sure that he is armed with every possible tool to see Australia exempted from the tariffs. Now, obviously that has failed and the government needs to double down on its efforts and I hope that the prime minister, on our country’s behalf, is able to achieve success and that will happen if doors are opening for Ambassador Rudd. I’m just not close enough to knowing what has been said to Ambassador Rudd and whether he’s persona non grata or whether he does have access to the administration. I think all of that would be influential in any decision that you were making around how the ambassador was being effective or there was a problem in the relationship. I think it’s a discussion probably for another day. MICHELLE GRATTAN: So, would you be interested in putting Scott Morrison in there at some point? PETER DUTTON: Well, I’m interested in making sure that the incumbent can do his job to the best possible degree and making sure that that’s in our country’s best interests. I think that’s the default position. We’ve got an incumbent in the position. I think the ambassador’s there for another 18 months or so, and I hope for our country’s sake, that he’s able to achieve what he hasn’t been able to achieve to date and I hope that there can be engagement. It is quite remarkable that neither the prime minister nor Ambassador Rudd have been able to secure even a phone call. There wasn’t even a courtesy phone call to the government to say that this decision was being handed down. Penny Wong has confirmed that she found out about this through the press sec at the White House Briefing Room. That is quite remarkable. That is a real thumbing of the nose, and I think the prime minister’s got a real problem of his own making. I want to make sure that we can get a better outcome for our country, because we need to provide support to Australian steel workers and to economic activity in our country. MICHELLE GRATTAN: As we move on, I just note that you’re not saying Scott Morrison is a ridiculous suggestion. PETER DUTTON: Well, I’ve got a high regard for Scott Morrison. I’ve got a high regard for a number of other colleagues and others. If there was a vacancy, then you could consider other applicants or other people for that job – but at the moment, there is no vacancy. I think the important aspect is to lend every assistance to the Ambassador because obviously he’s struggling at the moment. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now, a Newspoll has found that more than half the voters doubt that the Coalition is ready for government. Now, you say you’re holding policies back, essentially so they have maximum impact when they’re announced, that people don’t forget them. But isn’t the risk that this delay adds to this perception that you’re not prepared for office yet? PETER DUTTON: Michelle, all I can say is that, again, look at the track record. The track record is that in relation to the Voice, we had lots of critics to say that the Coalition should come out immediately and declare support for or against the Voice. We took our time, and in the end, we got the outcome that was the best outcome for our country. We went through it methodically. I can point to the policies that we’ve announced already, which have been significant – a $5 billion plan to create 500,000 new homes so young Australians can achieve the dream of home ownership again. Our plan to stop foreign ownership of Australian houses so that we can put Australians first in buying those houses. The effort that we’ve done in relation to the energy policy, which would be the most significant policy an opposition has ever taken to an election in relation to nuclear firming up renewables – that is revolutionary. We’re paying almost the highest cost for electricity in the world and the government’s renewables-only policy is a disaster. The final point I’d make in relation to policy is that we have been working day and night over the course of the last almost three years looking at policies. We’ve had different policies costed backwards and forwards with the Parliamentary Budget Office, and we will have significant policies to announce at the right time. But we also don’t want to pretend that we’re going to rewrite the tax system or rewrite large swathes of government policy from opposition. That is not the way to achieve success at the election. We are going to have one hell of a mess to clean up given the wreckage that Labor will leave behind, but we’re going to do it in a sensible way and we’re going to get our economy and our country back on track through a proven formula that Coalition governments always bring to the table. We’ll do that through prudent economic decisions that we can make, and we’ll make them quickly. MICHELLE GRATTAN: That does, however, leave many people with the feeling that maybe they don’t really know what a Dutton government would be like. That we could be in the situation where we were with the Abbott government where he came in with a certain platform and reassurances and then we got the 2014 budget. Are we at risk of another 2014 budget which produces many shocks? PETER DUTTON: No, Michelle, I think people again can look at my track record. As defence minister, we negotiated the AUKUS outcome, which will underpin security for our country for the next century. As health minister, I invested a record amount into hospitals, established the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund, and we had the ability to put more money into general practice through training places, many of those doctors graduating and out practising now. As home affairs minister, I kept our country safe by deporting violent criminals and managing our borders effectively. As assistant treasurer to Peter Costello, I was part of an economic team which was the most successful in recent history here in Australia. So, I have a skill set to bring to the role of prime minister, but I’ve also learnt the lessons of prime ministers, both Liberal and Labor, over my term in Parliament and I intend to learn from all of that. We’re at a period where families are cutting back in their own household budgets. As I say, there’s a record number of small businesses that have gone broke on this government’s watch. People are tightening their belts and people are cutting the fat out of their budgets and they’re struggling to pay their bills. I think at that time, more than any other time, people expect the government to cut back on wasteful spending as well. So, we’re not going to have families who are really struggling to pay their bills working harder than ever paying their taxes and allowing waste to take place. I want government services to be efficient so that we can get more money onto frontline services and have more GPs and have more educators and have a better outcome in terms of defence and national security in a very uncertain time. MICHELLE GRATTAN: But you wouldn’t have big shocks for the community post-election? PETER DUTTON: No, but we do want to identify where there is waste in the system, and I think Australians would expect us to do whatever we can to cut back on waste so that we can provide support to those Australians who are most in need. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, let’s just go through the areas of waste. Can you give some specific examples? PETER DUTTON: Well, in relation to the Canberra public service, as we’ve pointed out, there’s been phenomenal growth in the public service. Why? Because the government’s trying to please the Commonwealth Public Service Union. It’s not about service delivery or outcome. There are 36,000 new public servants at a cost of about $6 billion a year. Now, that is a staggering amount of money that is going into the economy, and it should be spent on either debt reduction or helping get the budget back into balance or making sure that we can meet the costs that we’ve got. That is one area and… MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now, that’s the figure you would cut. Is that right? The 36,000? PETER DUTTON: That’s correct, and we’ve been very clear about that. We supported the government, for example, as John Howard did with Paul Keating over the course of this term. We’ve supported the government in cutting back on some of the concerns in NDIS and making aged care more sustainable so that there is a recurrent built in save year on year compounding in those two areas. That’s something that the Labor Party never did when they were in opposition. So, we can identify areas where we can have better outcomes and I think Australians, frankly, expect that from a Liberal government and that’s what we would do. MICHELLE GRATTAN: How would you stop the consultancies just moving back in to fill the gap, because that’s what we saw before? PETER DUTTON: Well, again, if you’ve got a good skill set within the public service, then there’s no need to bring in additional outside support. But if you can spend money more efficiently by investing in an efficient delivery mechanism, then that is something that you would do. I want to make sure that we empower our public servants to be able to make decisions. I think sometimes, and certainly this has been my experience, if there’s not good direction and leadership from the prime minister and minister, then you end up with a situation where public servants are at sixes and sevens about what they think is the government’s direction. So, providing that clarity and that understanding of purpose gives a much more efficient outcome to the public service activity as well. MICHELLE GRATTAN: On the skill set in the public service, Steven Kennedy, the head of Treasury, has been involved in some controversy with some of your frontbenchers. Would he be safe under a Dutton government? PETER DUTTON: Well, I think you’re about 10 steps down the track, Michelle. We’ve got to win the election first, and then we have to work out the key appointments. I’ve worked very closely with Steven Kennedy, particularly over the COVID period, and I have a great deal of respect for him. I think he’s a very capable public servant, and I think he’s done a good job, particularly over that period when we were in government. But in relation to personnel changes and who would be secretary for what department, I think that’s all saved for another day. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Your working from home policy has created some controversy. Is your aim that almost all federal public servants should return to five days in the office? And if there are to be carve outs, what would be the circumstances? PETER DUTTON: Well, Michelle, we want to bring it back to something akin to where it was pre-COVID. About one in five public servants, or about 21% of Canberra public servants, were working from home, and it provided that flexibility. At the moment, it’s over 60%. There are people who are in important roles, who have been asked to come back to work, who refuse to come back to work. Now, that is not an acceptable position when taxpayers – who are paying the wages of our public servants – are out working second and third jobs just to be able to afford to pay the grocery bill. They’re seeing their tax dollars not being spent efficiently. So, there’s a sensible approach to it. There’s an accommodation of flexible work arrangements for women and women returning back to work or taking time off – and we can accommodate that. But at the moment, six out of 10 public servants working from home in Canberra is not an efficient public service. I want to make sure that we can drive the efficiencies, and therefore, drive the better outcomes for Australians. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now, your tax policy is on the wait and see list, but just in general, do you think that Australia’s taxation system needs a thorough overhaul or just some tinkering at the edges? And are more tax cuts inevitable in the next term of government, whoever wins because of inflation, putting people into higher brackets? PETER DUTTON: Michelle, I don’t think they’re inevitable because in government, we introduced stages one, two and three. So that was a comprehensive reform of the way in which the tax brackets operated and the tax rates as they applied, trying to address anomalies within the system, including bracket creep. So, there was a genuine and concerted effort. Now that’s what we did when we were in government, the Labor Party didn’t do that when they were in government. The Labor Party under Anthony Albanese tweaked the stage three, but hasn’t introduced any of their own tax cuts otherwise. So again, it’s not inevitable that there would be tax cuts under a Labor government, and the government’s objective, it seems, is similar to what is happening in Melbourne and in Victoria under Jacinta Allan, as it happened under Palaszczuk and Miles in Queensland – they will tax and spend, and they keep spending, and therefore they need to find new things to tax. That is not the approach of a Coalition government. We spend efficiently, we tax at the lowest possible rate and we try and simplify the system. If we can introduce tax cuts and make the system simpler and fit for purpose, then that’s our every instinct. MICHELLE GRATTAN: On health, you took over the government’s bulk billing policy, holus bolus, but isn’t that just tactical expediency rather than good policy formation? Surely the Coalition should have some ideas on health policy itself rather than just adopting what’s been put out there? PETER DUTTON: Michelle, a couple of points. Firstly, I’m very proud that when I was health minister, we increased hospital funding, we created the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund, as I mentioned. We invested into GP training, into regional health, and the bulk billing rate was 84% when I was health minister; it’s now 78% under Labor. So, we’ve got a good track record in relation to health. Next point is that we have done a lot in terms of policy offering in the health space, well before the government made its most recent announcement on Medicare. We promised an overhaul and additional investment in relation to women’s health, particularly around endometriosis and a number of other areas, including GP training – a commitment of $400 million. That was picked up, actually, by the government in their Medicare announcement most recently. We believe in a strong general practice network, because primary care and early detection means that we have greater survival rates from cancers, etc, and it also means that we’re saving money down the line when people otherwise turn up with higher acuity and greater health needs in the health system, particularly in the tertiary part of the health system. So we have seen fit to invest significantly – as we’ve announced – into general practice and into Medicare. But also we believe that mental health is a very important area of investment in the health system. The government hasn’t yet matched the $500 million additional dollars that we say we will invest into mental health. I hope that they do, because I think there are many people who are missing out on services at the moment, because the government cut back on mental health and we’ve restored that funding that they cut out of Medicare. MICHELLE GRATTAN: We haven’t heard a great deal on education policy from your spokeswoman. What changes do you think are needed to the higher education system, or indeed the education system more generally that the federal government can drive? PETER DUTTON: Michelle, I think this is one of the most important areas, obviously, of public policy. We’ve got one in three children at the moment failing to meet basic proficiency levels in reading, writing and maths under NAPLAN. The average year 10 student is one year behind in his or her learning compared to two decades ago. The year 12 completion rates have declined from 82% in 2019 under our government to 78.7% now. So, we do need to invest, and this is why, when I spoke before about having an efficient public service and getting more money back to frontline services, this is one area that we should be looking at, where we can provide support to teachers. But we also have to have a focus on curriculum and we have to make sure that our teachers are teaching our young children the basics through explicit instruction and making reading, writing, maths and science a priority. We’ve invested more into school funding and we’ll continue to do that into the future. So, there is a real focus, and not just on primary and secondary education, but also on apprentices and trainees. We have to make sure that we’ve got incentives and that we develop a culture again, that it’s acceptable to do a trade or a traineeship, whereas the government’s focus seems to be solely on getting people into university degrees, which is fine if that’s the choice people make. But for a lot of young Australians, they would be probably better in a pathway with a trade. MICHELLE GRATTAN: The opposition recently has got rather tangled – to put it mildly – on the question of what it would do about insurance companies. Can you just very briefly clarify what your policy is on this? Would you go down the divestiture road if that was necessary? PETER DUTTON: Michelle, I think we’ve been very clear in relation to it, and I’ll spell it out very clearly now. As I move around the country, there are countless stories I’ve heard of what’s happening in the insurance space. Now, we know that people can’t get insurance coverage, we know that people are paying astronomical prices for premiums, and it is one of the great grievances that people have in their own household budgets. So, there is a significant problem. Now, the government says that they can’t do anything about it, and our argument is that if, in government, we’re presented with evidence that because of a concentration of market share within a big player or big players within the insurance market, and that is what is leading to a significant spike in premiums or a lack of competition in the marketplace or the inability for people to get insurance coverage, then we will act. And that does include the prospect of divestiture, because that is what happens in the United States, in the United Kingdom and, frankly, it’s a statement of the obvious, that if you’ve got a market failure that is leading to people not being able to afford insurance premiums or that they’re being denied insurance, then that is a complete and catastrophic failure of the system that would need to be addressed. I’m absolutely astounded that the government wouldn’t agree to that. I’d also make this point: if two insurance companies decided to merge today, the ACCC would make a decision about whether or not that was in the market’s best interests. My government will be there to serve the Australian community, not to serve the big business community or anyone else. I want outcomes for consumers, and I want to make sure that our policies are helping, not hurting consumers. If the ACCC made a decision that those two companies merging was going to compromise on competition in the marketplace and drive up the cost of premiums or make it difficult for people to get insurance cover, they wouldn’t allow the merger to take place. It’s simply an extension of that principle. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now on climate change, now that the US is out, are you still definitely committed to staying in the Paris Agreement and to the net zero by 2050 target? PETER DUTTON: Yes, we are, and I believe that we’re the only major party going into this election with a credible policy to achieve net zero by 2050. The government, as they turn off coal and gas, is relying on green hydrogen. Nobody can tell you when green hydrogen will be a commercial reality, and in actual fact, all of the indicators at the moment are that money is being withdrawn from green hydrogen. So, I think the government’s prospects of net zero by 2050 diminish as each day goes by. The Coalition – like the United Kingdom, where the Labour Party has signed up to more nuclear, like the United States, where the Democrats and Republicans have both signed up to more nuclear – we have a credible pathway to net zero by 2050, we can bring electricity prices down. The government’s policy of relying on green hydrogen and more hydro projects – that have not even been identified, let alone construction started – their recipe, I think, is for higher emissions and an inability to achieve net zero by 2050, which is a stark contrast to where a Coalition government would be able to take our country. MICHELLE GRATTAN: But on this question of bringing prices down, isn’t this really pie in the sky hypothetical, because you’re talking decades on with nuclear. There are all sorts of variables in the years to come, so where prices go is surely unforeseeable, it’s no good just using modelling? PETER DUTTON: But that argument can apply to the government’s renewables-only policy… MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, precisely. Both sides. PETER DUTTON: Well, and if you look at the expert analysis, which we’ve had undertaken by Frontier Economics – the most preeminent energy economist in the country, used by Labor governments, including in South Australia – their judgement is that the Coalition’s policy compared to Labor’s policy would be 44% cheaper. It is quite a remarkable figure. But that’s the independent analysis, not analysis that we paid for, but analysis that was undertaken by a modeller used by the Labor Party. Importantly, Michelle – I think this is a really important point – we’ve now had, what, two, three months since that analysis was handed down, since that report was released. The government has not made one criticism of the assumptions or the outcomes. They’ve never disputed that 44% figure. I think it’s telling. I think it also demonstrates that the policy we’ve put together has been thought through, it has been robustly tested and it is in our country’s best interest. We also, in the near term, need to invest a lot more into gas and I think the government’s starting to realise this as well. We have to make sure that there is more gas to allow for electricity production and that is how we can have some downward pressure on prices in the near term. Also – just to pick you up on one of the points you made – the government now is investing in an overbuilding of the system, a cost that consumers are bearing now in their electricity prices. So, the government’s renewable-only policy over the period between now and 2050, the fact is that that is contributing to an increase in the cost of electricity and gas prices that consumers are paying right now. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Just on your 44% figure, though, we’re talking here decades on. The government used, before the last election, another reputable modeller, and as it turned out, it couldn’t even produce a figure that stuck for two or three years. So, it does suggest, does it not, that trying to put precision into these undertakings is a very dubious proposition? PETER DUTTON: Well, let’s look at the world experience – the international experience. So in Ontario, use of nuclear underpinning renewables in that system, they’re paying about a third of the electricity costs we are in this country. In Tennessee, similar story in the United States. In the United States, in towns like in the Hunter Valley or like in Collie that have no future after coal goes, they are revitalising and rejuvenating those regional centres, and we can do that here in Australia. Out of the top 20 economies in the world, Australia is the only one that isn’t using or hasn’t signed up to nuclear. Indonesia has committed to significant investments into nuclear. I pose this question, why is it that of the top 20 economies in the world, 19 of them see the economic and environmental benefit out of using nuclear, but the Albanese government is the only one that doesn’t? So we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here, we’re looking at a proven technology. The government has no concerns about safety or disposal of waste, because they signed up to the AUKUS submarine deal, which has a nuclear propulsion system, and no Prime Minister in his or her right mind would do that if they thought there was a safety concern for our sailors and the defence force personnel who will crew these submarines. So, the only criticism that I think commentators frankly can make in relation to the nuclear debate at the moment is of the Labor Party, and why isn’t there a bipartisan position in relation to nuclear so that we can achieve it more quickly? I think [Premier] Peter Malinauskas in South Australia is biting at the bit to be involved in the creation of a civil nuclear industry and he’s been very supportive of nuclear in past, as is [Prime Minister] Keir Starmer in the UK, as is Joe Biden and many other significant figures who would be cited on most other days by members of the Labor Party, including Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen. MICHELLE GRATTAN: I want to turn to the broad area of defence and foreign policy. Malcolm Turnbull’s organising a conference to look at where Australian strategic policy should be in the new Trump era. Do you think that a realignment of Australia’s security and strategic policy is needed, now that President Trump is treating alliances in Europe in a very different way than the past? Or do you have confidence in the strength of the alliance we have with the United States? And if you take the latter view, what do you base that on? PETER DUTTON: Well, I have total confidence in the relationship with the United States when it comes to our military alliances, and I believe very strongly that our stars align with the United States as they have done historically and will do into the future, and not just the United States, but our Five Eyes partners otherwise, and new partners, particularly I speak of Japan and of India. We live in a precarious period, there’s no question of that, and we have to do everything we can to keep our country safe, and we need strong leadership to be able to do that. The prime minister talks about the threats in this century and then takes money out of defence. It’s anomalous and it’s dangerous. So, we have, what I believe is a sensible approach to the relationship, we have relationships with key players within the [US] administration, long standing supporters within the Congress on both sides of the aisle, and we can have, I think, a very productive relationship going forward. But it is a new world under President Trump, there’s no question, and we have to consolidate the relationships that we have. But it’s hard for relationships to be built when the United States doesn’t have any respect for our prime minister and when the prime minister and key ministers have repeatedly used derogatory language about the president. That is not conducive to a productive relationship. MICHELLE GRATTAN: I think to be fair, we have to point out that no country’s got an exemption from the tariffs, so we don’t know that… PETER DUTTON: Well, Australia did in 2018. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Yes, but no countries now. PETER DUTTON: Well, again, we did that as a Coalition government, and there’s no doubt in my mind that we could do it again as a Coalition government. That is exactly the task that I set myself. MICHELLE GRATTAN: I see the other day that Kim Beazley said Australia should boost its defence spending to 3 or 3.5% of GDP. Do you think we need to go above 3% of GDP? PETER DUTTON: Well Michelle, firstly, I have a great deal of respect for Kim Beazley, and I have met with him and discussed defence matters before, and he was a great ambassador for our country in Washington. I think the Labor Party, frankly, probably misses not having him in Washington at the moment. He is one of the most astute observers of matters defence here and globally. I do think we should listen to his warnings about the threats that could face Australia over the course of the next decades or century. There is a compelling argument to invest more into defence. What that number is, that has to be considered in time, and in part, it’s a discussion that we would have to have in government with the agencies, not just defence, but with the central agencies as well, and that’s exactly what we would do. MICHELLE GRATTAN: So you won’t put a number on it before the election? PETER DUTTON: Well, we’ll have more to say in relation to defence, and we’ve done a lot of work in defence policy during our period in opposition. But, again, I think look at the track record in government, and in government, we were able to invest more into defence, we put $10 billion into REDSPICE, which was the beefing up of the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and not just our defensive capability, but also our offensive capability in cyber, which makes the calculation for an adversary much different if they know that we have the ability to strike in the cyber world. We do have a lot of capability that we have enhanced through that investment into Operation REDSPICE, and I’m proud to have been the minister that made that decision. We also had, obviously, the ability, the capacity, to negotiate AUKUS, which I think has been revolutionary for our country. MICHELLE GRATTAN: You were quite forward-leaning in criticising Donald Trump over his treatment of the Ukraine president, but unlike Anthony Albanese, you’re reluctant to contemplate Australia contributing to a peacekeeping force if one comes into being for Ukraine. Why is that? PETER DUTTON: Michelle, I think the prime minister has shot from the hip here, because it’s quite telling the deputy prime minister and defence minister, as well as the assistant defence minister, have both walked back what the prime minister had said. No European nation has decided to put troops on the ground in Ukraine, and yet the Australian prime minister is making that pledge. Now, it’s why the prime minister hasn’t really spoken about it since then, he hadn’t spoken to the chief of the Defence Force about our capabilities or what that would look like. And ironically, it came at a time when the Australian government had to rely on a Virgin pilot to advise it of naval operations from the People’s Liberation Army Navy in our own waters – and yet the prime minister’s talking about sending our troops to Europe. It just doesn’t make any sense. So, we’re a strong supporter and ally of Ukraine, and I’m very proud of that and proud of the fact that as defence minister I was able to work with the Ukrainian ambassador to deliver the Bushmasters, which have saved lives – the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and men and women in that country as well. So, we’ve got a lot to work on and a lot to contribute to in relation to peace and stability and restoration of life in Ukraine. But putting boots on the ground, I think was an off-the-cuff remark by the prime minister and it just shows his lack of experience in the national security space. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now, just finally, people of course these days have little trust in politicians, we see that in survey after survey, and many people probably listening to this podcast will think, ‘well, politicians don’t keep their promises and how can I believe what Peter Dutton says?’. So, we will hear a lot of promises, a lot of commitments, from both sides during this election campaign. In what circumstances do you think a leader is justified in breaking a promise, a core promise, that they made during the campaign? PETER DUTTON: Well Michelle, the first point I should make is it’s not just politicians, it’s also, I think, journalists and used car sales people… MICHELLE GRATTAN: Point taken. PETER DUTTON: …Real estate agents and others who don’t bear up too well under that same scrutiny. But I think politicians, members of Parliament, by and large, want the best for their country and whether they’re Labor or Liberal, I think people have a desire to see the best outcome for their community and their country. Sometimes they make mistakes and they should be held to account for that, but by and large people do their very best for our country and I think we recognise that. In terms of the question you ask, I think it’s very difficult to see a circumstance where there is an excuse for breaking a promise – perhaps a national security reason, if we had to make a decision that was in our country’s best interests to save lives, that went against something we’d committed for or against before an election, then that obviously would be a circumstance where you could conceive of that. But I think if people make a commitment, as the leader of a major party, or indeed a teal or whoever it might be, then there is a reasonable expectation that they follow through on that commitment. MICHELLE GRATTAN: Peter Dutton, thank you very much for talking with us today, as we approach the more intense part of what’s been an election campaign that seems to have gone on forever! That’s all for today’s Politics Podcast. Thank you to my producer, Ben Roper. We’ll be back with another interview soon, but goodbye for now. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tina Jackson on the independents to watch this election 23:52

7 weeks ago23:52

23:52

A group of independents give a press conference at Parliament House Canberra. Mick Tsikas/AAP The 2022 election catapulted a new movement into Australian federal politics, with the election of six “teals”. The teals are part of a broader wave of “community independents” who are challenging the major parties, especially the Liberals and appealing to voters who want politics done differently. As the 2025 election draws close, the Community Independents Project, which was founded in 2021 to support the grass root independents, will not only seek to retain the gains made but to increase the representation in the lower house. We are joined on the podcast by the executive director of the Community Independents Project, Tina Jackson, who was a key figure behind Zali Steggall’s successful campaign against Tony Abbott in Warringah. Steggall was a forerunner of the teals. On what makes a “community candidate” different from other Independents like Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Tasmania) or Dai Le, (Fowler, NSW) Jackson explains, What distinguishes a community independent is that they’re selected by their communities through a grassroots process. It’s […] ground-up and not top-down. So communities decide they want better representation. They listen to their communities. For example, they hold kitchen table conversations to find out what matters to them, their values and their issues, and then they search for a candidate that represents those issues and values. They run selection processes, then select and campaign for their chosen candidate. So every community has their own tweaks on this community-before-candidate theme, but at its heart, this bottom-up approach is what defines a community independent. On the kind of issues these independents might be campaigning on now that the “Morrison” factor is gone, Jackson says each campaign will decide what issues to tackle, and a lot of the issues from the 2022 campaign aren’t going away, The issues are not always the same. The need for climate action hasn’t gone away nor has the issue of integrity in politics nor equality. […] The community independents are already pursuing action on these in parliament. Concerns around cost of living obviously have grown [and] is going to be a much bigger issue this election. In regional areas, they will be driven by their particular issues – might be education, might be health, local infrastructure and so on, and all of the community independents will be reflecting those issues and values that they’re told about by their communities. The other thing to say is there might not be the Morrison factor, but there is concern about Trumpian politics coming to Australia and there is a real sense that democracy is fragile and that we need to do everything to protect it. I think that is another layer this time around. Jackson nominates three candidates she is most hopeful about and how they are challenging the notions of safe seats, There are a lot of really exciting campaigns, but there are three in particular that I think [are] worth keeping an eye on. So one is Caz Heise in Cowper, and that’s in the mid-north coast of New South Wales around Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour. The second one is Alex Dyson in Wannon in rural southwest Victoria. And [there is] Nicolette Boele in Bradfield in Sydney’s north. These three, I think, are three in particular to watch. But if I could also add, no matter how many community independents win, communities have already won by being engaged in the political process, they’re making their seats marginal and there’s now no such thing as a safe seat. While funding from Climate 200 remains a strong asset for the group, Jackson says it’s the “people power” that helps the most, Well, it’s important to clarify […] that Climate 200 is a crowdfunding platform, and they have around 35,000 donors, and [Simon Holmes à Court’s] contribution is relatively small. So it’s Climate 200, not Simon, that helps fund campaigns. But Climate 200 is only one source of funding, and [in] reality, the campaigns need to raise a huge amount themselves, and they raise that directly. There are also other funding sources like the Regional Voices Fund for regional campaigns. Cash is important because there are hard costs like signs and tee-shirts and flyers and so on. But what really drives the movement is the volunteers. It’s their time and their talent, not the cash. The value of the human capital behind the movement, it really is immense. So I’m not trying to underestimate the funding, because funding is, of course, important, but the real driving force behind the movement are the tens of thousands of volunteers. So without this people power, campaigns simply would not get off the ground, let alone succeed. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: James Curran on Trump, Ukraine, shifting tectonic plates, and a bigger Australian defence bill 27:52

8 weeks ago27:52

27:52

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA The Trump presidency is turning much of the world order on its head. Tne United States president is arm-twisting Ukraine, playing nice with Russia, and using protection as an economic and political weapon. The Australian government is pessimistic about escaping American tariffs on aluminium and steel when a decision is announced next week. Meanwhile, the message from the US is clear: we need to boost defence spending. To discuss Trump Mark 2 on the world stage and what that means for Australia, we’re joined by James Curran, professor of modern history at the University of Sydney. Curran says, One gets the sense that we are looking at the kind of tectonic plates of world politics shifting before our very eyes. Trump is about might is right. He does have an expansionary view of American power in the western hemisphere if we are to judge him by his statements on the Panama Canal and Greenland. But I think more broadly, his interpretation of American power is to simply “get out of America’s way”. In terms of economic implications, [it’s] a confirmation that we are looking at the permanence of protectionism in the United States. This administration, along with the Biden administration and the first Trump administration, have been putting a wrecking ball through the multilateral trading system and the WTO. And that is certainly a not a good thing for free trade and for countries like Australia. Curran explains what America’s expectation that countries need to spend more on defence would mean for Australia, This has been the great concern, if you like, over a number of years – that Australia has got defence on the cheap, that it’s put so much of its national wealth into the middle class and welfare and infrastructure and developing the nation that it’s been able to rely on the American blanket of protection while it pursues its prosperity. So if [defence spending] is to rise to 3% [of GDP], then that’s going to mean, firstly, a concentration on what are the lower cost alternatives to defend this continent? And secondly, where will the trade offs come? What will be sacrificed from the national budget? And what political leader in this country will front the Australian people and squarely and honestly and earnestly have a conversation about these dramatic strategic circumstances and why greater sacrifice is required from Australians to enable a higher defence expenditure. Is the Trump world the new normal, or will this be over when Trump eventually leaves the White House? I’m a little bit sceptical about this idea that we grit our teeth and close our eyes and hope that the nightmare is over in four years time. There is a really big question mark over how America can snap back in terms of its institutional robustness. The pressure that the courts, the media and the Congress are under. Does this all just snap back in four years time? Do we really think that either a Republican or a Democrat successor to Trump will ride into Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue in a glittering chariot of liberal internationalism? To say everyone shouldn’t worry because the liberal international order is back and it’s gleaming and it’s working. I really think this is up to America’s allies, both in Europe and in East Asia, to continue to protect as many of those rules and those institutions that have worked so well for so many of us, as much as they possibly can. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tom Rogers calls for national digital literacy campaign and more civics teaching 24:20

9 weeks ago24:20

24:20

Mick Tsikas/AAP We see the political parties’ frantic election campaigns, but behind the scenes the Australian Electoral Commisison is working just as hard. An often overlooked part of Australia’s democracy, the AEC is vital in ensuring our elections are both efficient and fair, a task full of challenges. We’re joined today by Tom Rogers, recently retired as Electoral Commissioner. As commissioner, Rogers oversaw three federal elections and the Voice referendum. He is now a member of the advisory board of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and provides his expertise on elections globally. Rogers describes running a modern Australian election as the largest peacetime logistic exercise in the life of Australia […] it’s so complex administratively to run these events. It’s a bit like setting up a fortune 500 company in four weeks, running it, then dismantling it a couple of weeks after the event. It is just phenomenally complex. And the amazing thing is that because we’ve got good systems in place, it works pretty well. The agency goes from, I’ll use very rough figures here, about a thousand people all over Australia during the non-electoral period up to about 105,000 people during that very short period. There are a lot of calls for truth in advertising laws and some calls for it to be managed by the AEC. Rogers insists the AEC should not be involved, I was a firm believer that that would be very inappropriate for the AEC. It’s one of those rare things where we were very, very proactive in talking to people about that. And one of the reasons is because I think it would ruin the AEC’s reputation for neutrality. It’s as simple as that. It will impact on the AEC’s level of trust with the community.[…] given trust is so important, that people trust electoral outcomes, I think it’s incredibly dangerous. While not wanting to be involved with truth in advertising, Rogers does see the importance in the AEC countering misinformation on Australia’s electoral process, We’ve established a ‘defending democracy unit’. We ran a national campaign called Stop and Consider to get people to think about the source of information. But I think the bit that we can do and that’s still missing is we really need a national digital literacy campaign for our citizens. When you correct disinformation about electoral matters, there’s a whole body of research that shows that it’s kind of effective. What is more effective rather than debunking is ‘prebunking’ and what is more effective again, is giving citizens the skills they need to make up their own mind about the accuracy of information. The Stop and Consider campaign, I might be wrong, but is still the only national campaign focussed on giving citizens skills. We need to run something like that all the time. I think there’s a real need for this in the modern era and that’s what we should be doing. Rogers also highlights the importance of civics education It’s critical. The AEC is already doing good work in this space. Up until I left at the end of last year, generally speaking the AEC was getting about 100,000 kids a year through the Electoral Education Centre in Canberra, which is excellent. They are in the process of digitising much of the materials so that that could be spread to schools that are unable to visit Canberra. I do think we need to do more. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Danielle Wood on how to trim back housing regulations 24:18

10 weeks ago24:18

24:18

Lukas Coch/AAP Housing supply in Australia will be a key battleground in the election campaign. With home ownership more and more out of reach for young and not so young Australians, red tape and low productivity are strangling the builder industry just when it needs to be stepping up. The productivity Commission, the government’s independent think tank, has a new report report pointing to ways governments need to address the issues. In this podcast we talk to commission chair Danielle Wood about the housing challenge, as well as Australia’s parlous productivity performance generally and her drive to get some fresh ideas on how to improve it. On one of the report’s main recommendation, cutting red tape for construction approvals, Wood says, I like to think of regulation as a bit like a hedge. […] There’s almost an unwavering tendency for it to grow over time if you don’t clip it back. And I think in housing that’s particularly true. You have multiple levels of government involved, particularly local governments and state governments. Lots of different policy objectives in play. So obviously, quality and safety being pivotal, local amenity, heritage, traffic, environmental, accessibility. Lots and lots of decisions are taken, often without considering the trade off. And every time we add new regulations or more complex regulations, that imposes a cost. And ultimately that is a drag on housing, productivity and supply. So what should be done? We’ve certainly said we think there should be a good look at the national construction code, which is one source of regulatory burden where we think there’s scope to improve. I would love to see state governments – and I think they are turning their mind to this – to look at this question of just the sheer amount of regulation, the timeframes for approvals and look to ways to streamline the burden and also help develop and builders coordinate their way through that process more smoothly. On why productivity in construction in particular has fallen so far, Wood explains, You do not see many sectors go backwards in productivity over that sort of time horizon. One reason is that our homes are bigger and better quality. So I think that is worth noting. If we adjust for that, productivity has declined, but only by 12% rather than 50%. We haven’t seen the same sort of innovation in homebuilding that we’ve seen in other parts of the economy. We still essentially build most houses the same way we did 100 years ago so we haven’t had that technological change driver of productivity. It’s an industry that’s characterised by lack of scale. And then there are workforce challenges as well. And, you know, we all hear a lot about the challenge of attracting and retaining skilled trades workers. You know, that can make it hard, particularly building. The Productivity Commission asked for submissions from the public on how to improve Australia’s productivity more generally. Wood is happy with how the initiaive is going, It’s been worth the effort. We’ve actually ended up with more than 500 submissions in the end, And they’re from a mix from individuals, from businesses, from organisations. But for me, the beauty is being able to hear from people that we wouldn’t normally hear from in our reviews and the point is that all of us interact with aspects of government policy every day in our lives and I think we absolutely heard that through the submissions. There were some fun ones there – high quality Japanese public toilets, more freely available free coffee. But more generally, I mean, we heard from small business owners about impacts of red tape and regulation [and] lots of interest in education policy. Unsurprisingly, again, it touches a lot of our lives, but looking for things like more work experience in schools, trying to build more industry-relevant skills into higher education. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: David Littleproud on US tariffs, a government-owned Rex, and the Nationals’ identity 30:28

11 weeks ago30:28

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Diego Fedele/AAP With the election only months away, the Labor government finds itself suddenly battling with the Trump administration for an exemption from new US tariffs on steel and aluminium. The opposition has supported the effort, but it also claims a Coalition government would be better place to deal with Donald Trump. Joining us on this podcast, Nationals leader David Littleproud says if Labor fails to get an exemption on the tariffs, a Dutton government would try again: Of course we will and I think that the relationship that Peter Dutton had and still has in Washington will play very much towards that. In fact, I was in Washington with Peter in July last year and so he can walk the halls of Washington with authority and confidence. And I think it’s important that we want this solved and it doesn’t matter who’s in power. This is team Australia, and we’ve got to have a bipartisan approach and I think Pete has shown that leadership. On net zero, while Littleproud firmly backs the target as in Australai’s national interest, he also says if the world walked away from it, so would we. What everyone’s trying to do is protect regional Australia. But, just so everyone appreciates, if we’re not signed up to net zero by 2050, the people are hurt the most are the people in regional Australia, our farmers and our miners, because if we don’t sign up to what the rest of the world has, the world gets to impose on us a border adjustment mechanism. That’s a tariff and that means we get less for what we produce in regional Australia. Now if the world changes and walks away from net zero, then we walk away with it. But we’re not the United States, we’re not the biggest economy in the world. You got to understand your place in the world, and you’ve got to understand the unintended consequences. The government this week announced it would be willing to take over Rex Airlines if it can’t be sold. Littleproud is sceptical: Well, I think we’ve spent over $130 million of Australian taxpayer’s money and don’t have a lot to show for it. I think what we’ve got to also look at is that Rex was a viable regional airline before they had a dalliance into competing with Qantas and Virgin in the golden triangle between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. They couldn’t compete and instead of spending money on that, they should have upgraded their fleet. The government has wasted enough time. They should open up conversation with the broader regional aviation sector, which they haven’t done, to find a solution, whether that be one in totality of a purchaser for Rex or whether that be a carve out of players and with policy levers is being pulled, rather than the Australian taxpayer having to cut the check in entirety. So I think we haven’t exhausted all the options. On the coming election campaign, Littleproud stresses the closeness between the Nationals and the Liberals, rather than seeking to emphasise a separate Nationals’ pitch. Peter and I, I think, have the tightest coalition that we’ve ever had. There’s not a piece of paper between us. We’re literally joined at the hip and our campaigns will complement one another and in fact, they’ll intertwine in many places. I think that’s important that the people of Australia understand that the only coalition that they can trust to form government is the Nationals and Liberals, not Labor, Greens and teals – that that is the only coalition that’ll give them stability, not chaos. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: John Blaxland and Richard Holden talk about what Trump will mean for Australia 26:26

13 weeks ago26:26

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Lukas Coch/AAP As Australia gears up for the election, the incoming government’ Labor or Coalition, will face global challenges, geo-political and economic, especially with Donald Trump starting to impose tariffs on selected countries including China, To discuss where Australia is placed to meet new circumstances we’re joined by two experts. John Blaxland is Director of the ANU North America Liaison Office, based in Washington, and Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies. Richard Holden is Professor of Economics at UNSW. Blaxland outlines how Australia should continue to support the current international norms, and how changing norms could spell trouble, The rules based international order is something that we are going to feel the absence of quite keenly. For small and middle powers like Australia the reliance on that order has obviated the need to spend up a lot on military capabilities and that’s going to shift. We’ve seen the United States walking away from COP-related agreements but these arrangements still have global momentum and I would contend that Australia has an interest in continuing to support them as best as possible, particularly for the sake of our partners in the Pacific, but also just for our own sake. On who could deal with Trump better, Blaxland doesn’t think it would make a lot of difference, I don’t think the United States pays much attention to what happens internally in Australian politics and I think the Albanese government and Penny Wong and Richard Marles and others are wise to present as small a target as possible. The ALP is playing a difficult hand well in bilateral relations with the United States. Broadly it is still strongly in our interests to make that work as best we can. There’s no question there’s a closer Liberal-Trump alignment, and that may make it easier. But the economic and security relations are key and here it’s important to remember that the United States has a trade surplus with Australia and so that means we’re not in his [Trump’s] crosshairs immediately for having the opposite, and America is the biggest foreign direct investor in Australia by a country mile. Holden says of the economy internationally, The global economy is well on the way to recovering from the post-pandemic inflation, the associated increases in most advanced economies and interest rates in most of those jurisdictions, are coming down. In some of those, New Zealand is an example there’s been a real hit to the economy. But it’s generally looking reasonably positive with the one big looming thing, which is what happens to international trade as a result of the Trump tariff threats that are now starting to be put into action. But Holden is a bit more pessimistic about Australia’s economy, Not to be too gloomy about things, I think the news is a little less good. So the Prime Minister I heard on your podcast recently and the Treasurer talking about their last two budgets, and while they’re right that there has been two small budget surpluses, that’s really off the back of just an extraordinary windfall in terms of tax revenue. On debt, If you look going forward, even so far government decisions have added $78 to $80 billion to that debt and the recent mid-year update, MYEFO reports the cumulative debt for the next four years will be over $140 billion of the increase. I think there’s a sense that our fiscal house is really being put into really good shape and I don’t think that’s accurate. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Albanese dumps Nature Positive legislation and considers shrinking the electoral reform bill 47:14

13 weeks ago47:14

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dumped – for the second time – the government’s controversial “Nature Positive” legislation, which had run into strong opposition from the Western Australian Labor government. Albanese, speaking on The Conversation’s Politics podcast ahead of a fortnight parliamentary sitting starting next week, said there was not enough support for the legislation, which had been on the draft list of bills for next week, circulated by the government. This is the second time the Prime Minister has pulled back from the legislation. Late last year he also said it did not have enough support, despite Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek believing she had a deal with the Greens and crossbench for its passage. The legislation would set up a federal Environment Protection Agency, which has riled miners who claim it would add to bureaucracy and delay approvals. In recent days WA premier Roger Cook, who was instrumental in heading off the legislation last year, has been lobbying the federal government again. WA faces an election on March 8. In an interview on Saturday, Albanese told The Conversation: “I can’t see that it has a path to success. So at this stage, I can say that we won’t be proceeding with it this term. There simply isn’t a [Senate] majority, as there wasn’t last year. "The Greens Party on one hand have changed their views”, making another demand during the week, he said. While the Liberals – who began the review of the present Environment Protection Act – “have chosen an obstructionist path,” he said. Albanese said the government would continue to discuss the issue with stakeholders in the next term of parliament. “Does the environment and protection act need revision from where it was last century? Quite clearly it does. Everyone says that that’s the case. It’s a matter of working to, in a practical way, a commonsense reform that delivers something that supports industry. "I want to see faster approvals. We in fact have speeded up approvals substantially. "But we also want proper sustainability as well.” Albanese also flagged the government might cut back its legislation to reform rules covering electoral donations and spending in order to get a deal to pass it. Special Minister of State Don Farrell and the Liberals had been on the brink of a deal in the final week of parliament last year, but negotiations imploded at the eleventh hour. Albanese told The Conversation he hoped the legislation could still be passed. “I spoke with [Farrell] today, he is consulting with people across the parliament. "What I would say is that we are looking to get reform through. Now whether that is a bigger, broader reform or whether it needs to be narrowed down, we’ll wait and see. "But we’re very serious about the reform which would lower the donation declarations, that would put a cap on donations, a cap on expenditure, that would lead to more transparency as well. It’s an important part of supporting our democracy. "We see overseas and we’ve seen people like Clive Palmer here spend over $100 million on a campaign. That’s a distortion of democracy – if one person can spend that much money to try to influence an election and we don’t find out all of that information till much later on.” The reforms would not start operating until the next term of parliament. Albanese said he thought the reform would have “overwhelming support” with the public “and I hope that it receives overwhelming support in the Senate as well”. Podcast E&OE TRANSCRIPT MICHELLE GRATTAN, HOST: The date for the election isn’t announced yet, but the contestants have been running at full tilt for months. Many voters, however, hard pressed by the cost of living, are just starting to tune in, and their mood is often sour and certainly impatient. The polls at present are showing the election battle is finally balanced, with observers speculating on a hung parliament. But there’s a lot to play out in coming weeks before the result is decided. Today, in our first podcast for 2025, we sit down with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to talk about current issues and his pitch for a second term. Prime Minister, thank you for joining the podcast. Let’s start with the antisemitism wave that we’re seeing. Now, I know that you won’t comment on the recent incident involving the caravan full of explosives, about which, reportedly, you weren’t told initially. But more generally, are you satisfied with the performance of federal and state agencies in dealing with this wave generally, and are you satisfied that your Government and the states are doing everything they can to try to bring this under control? ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: I am satisfied that we are doing everything within our powers, and that every single request by the Australian Federal Police or by state jurisdictions or by the intelligence agencies, including ASIO, is met with one word: yes. So they are being provided with all of the resources and support. My focus is two things. The first focus is on safety. The second is on providing those intelligence and police agencies with support so that people can be rounded up, and I want to see people hunted down. I want to see them jailed. GRATTAN: This whole wave, though, seems quite extraordinary, to me, at least. Have you any explanation or theory about how this could be happening? So much violence, so many incidents. PRIME MINISTER: Well, the police have outlined, themselves, some of their views about what the motivation is, and one of those is that some of the perpetrators of these violent acts have been paid to do so. Now, they are engaged in an operation to not just find the perpetrators, but find who’s paying them. Who are the actors behind this? Which is why some of the calls for more of that information to be out there, whilst understandable from one perspective, what you can’t do is undermine an investigation. And I’m about outcomes here, I want to make sure that that the people responsible, not just up front, but behind this, are held to account. GRATTAN: But are you surprised that we’ve seen this enormous outbreak? PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course, I was surprised as well by last week the vision of up to 30 men in black gear from head to toe, marching through Adelaide and Adelaide Park – trying to march through – and Adelaide city, to disrupt Australia Day festivities. That’s not who Australia – it’s not what we are. We’re a tolerant, multicultural, harmonious nation, and some of clearly the motivation of some of this is about causing social division. Is about disruption. And it is – it is shocking. It has caused enormous distress in particularly, of course, in the Jewish community, who’ve been targeted. But more broadly, it’s caused distress as well. GRATTAN: Obviously, over its history, since the 1970s, multiculturalism has come under pressure at times. Do you think it is now seriously under pressure because of what’s happened in the wake of the Middle East conflict, and do you think more action has to be taken by governments, by organisations, by community leaders, to really put more glue in our multiculturalism? PRIME MINISTER: We can’t take our social cohesion for granted. It needs to be nurtured, it needs to be cherished. That’s why I’ve appointed Peter Khalil as the Special Envoy on Social Cohesion to work with communities to that end. So I think quite clearly with some of the challenges that are there – and this isn’t just an Australian phenomenon. We see this in the United States, the United Kingdom, in other nations as well. We need to make sure that we do what we can to, as you put it, provide that glue that brings us together. I’ve always thought that Australia can be a microcosm for the world that can show people of different faiths, different backgrounds, can come together, living in harmony, strengthened by our diversity. And it certainly is one of the things that I find fantastic about living in Australia, is that diversity that’s there. I’ve just been celebrating the Year of the Snake in the Lunar New Year, with tens of thousands of people in the Chinese community gathered at Box Hill. They’re expecting today, over the day, over 150,000 people to participate there in Melbourne, and that’s a great privilege. It’s one of the great things about being Australian. GRATTAN: Let’s turn to cost of living, which, of course, will be at the heart of the election battle. We’ve been in a per capita recession for some time now. And you told the Fin Review a day or so ago that Australians will be better off in three years’ time than they are now. How soon do you anticipate we might be out of this per capita recession? PRIME MINISTER: We can see already from the figures that inflation is down to 2.4 per cent, the headline rate. Underlying down to 3.2 per cent from 3.6 per cent. So it’s been heading in the right direction. It peaked above seven. When we came to office, it had a six in front of it, so it’s almost a third. So that’s part of the equation. The second part, of course, is the inputs, which is people’s wages and real wages have risen four quarters in a row. Unemployment is low, relatively. It’s at 4 per cent and indeed the average unemployment rate during my Government is lower than any government in the last 50 years, and that’s a remarkable achievement given global inflationary pressures. So we want to see living standards rise. We see the purpose of an economy being working for people, not the other way around. And there are positive signs there. If you look at consumer confidence, those figures have been heading in the right direction as well. So I am very hopeful that what we’ve managed to do – I say, it’s like landing a 747 on a helicopter pad – to try to land lower inflation, whilst providing cost of living, relief and support, whilst making sure you don’t have a negative impact in which there’s spike in unemployment. That’s been our task, and the figures show that it has been the right strategy going forward, compared with New Zealand which is in a significant recession. Unemployment has hit double digits amongst many of our competitors, and we have the fastest employment growth, faster than any G7 country. GRATTAN: So could we get out of this per capita recession this calendar year, do you think? PRIME MINISTER: Look, things are heading positive, and when you have real wages increasing and you have inflation heading in the right direction down to 2.4 per cent. So the Reserve Bank band that they seek is between two and three, so it’s in the bottom half. Now the Reserve Bank will make independent decisions, but obviously interest rates have a major impact on people’s quality of life as well, and so I am positive that what we have done is to come through some of the hardest economic times that we’ve seen globally, which was a product, in part, of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But also, people can’t underestimate the impact that the tail of COVID, which is still with us, has had. GRATTAN: So without pre-empting the Reserve Bank, do you think we can expect interest rates will come down in the next few months? PRIME MINISTER: Well, all of the economic commentators are saying that that is the most likely prediction of markets. It’s not up to me as Prime Minister to tell the independent Reserve Bank what to do, but I’m certain that we’ve created the conditions through, as well, our responsible economic management. Producing two Budget surpluses, the massive turnaround that we have seen, compared with what the March 2022 Budget handed down by the Coalition by Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, was predicting. That turnaround is around $200 billion. That is a big turnaround, the biggest ever fiscal turnaround, in any term of government. GRATTAN: I’m sure you’ll have your fingers crossed mid-month when the Bank meets. PRIME MINISTER: February 18 is the meeting, and I’m certainly conscious of that date. GRATTAN: Incidentally, in the interview that I referred to, I noticed you said the election date is fluid. That is your position? No final decision on that? PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, no, we make decisions when we finalise them and I’ll consult. But I’ve always said, I’ve been asked this now for some time. One of the problems with three year terms is they are too short, and this time last year, Peter Dutton was calling for an election to stop tax cuts going forward, it’s important to remember. And then various publications were predicting an election in August. Then it was September, October, etc. I think three years is too short, so we’ll make an assessment at an appropriate time. But Parliament will be sitting next week, as I said last year that it would. GRATTAN: Maybe you really do want that Budget in March? PRIME MINISTER: Well, we certainly are working to hand down a budget in March. The ERC will be meeting this week as it met last week, and we’ve done a lot of work, obviously, with the March Budget proposed, a lot of work is done in advance in MYEFO, more so than if it was a May budget. So a lot of work has been done. GRATTAN: You often say that you don’t want people held back or people left behind. At this point, who is left behind? In other words, who do you see as the most, as the people most needing urgent help? PRIME MINISTER: One of the issues that brings up, I think, is intergenerational equity. I think that young people feel like they’ve got the rough end of the pineapple compared with previous generations. So something I’m really conscious of, that’s one of the reasons why we’ll cancel 20 per cent of student debt on top of the $3 billion we’ve already cancelled. That’s one of the reasons why we’re concentrating so hard on housing and on making sure that we increase supply. That’s one of the reasons why, as well, I’ve done so much hard work with Jason Clare, not just on early childhood education that we’ve done with Anne Aly, but on school education at the moment, trying to finally deliver on David Gonski’s vision of 14 years ago. We’ve now got six of the states and territories signed up to that. But while also we’re delivering Free TAFE, more than 600,000 Australians, largely young people, have benefited from that, as well as the Universities Accord. So all the way through, we think education is really important. Housing is important and giving people that opportunity. GRATTAN: So do you want to do more in the way of promises and so on this term for young people? Or do you think you’ve reached the limit of what you can do? PRIME MINISTER: We’ll have more policies being announced for them and and in other areas as well. I mean Labor will always want to do more to strengthen the economy and for that to create the conditions to do more in education and health and creating opportunity. And what I mean by no one left behind is that during these difficult economic times, we’ve provided substantial income support for people who’ve needed it. We changed the Single Parenting Payment. We’ve increased Rental Assistance by 45 per cent with two consecutive support increases, the first time that’s ever happened. So we’ve done that to target particularly disadvantaged groups. We’re reforming the NDIS to make sure that it’s sustainable in the long term. We’ve got aged care reform to make sure that older Australians get the dignity and respect they deserve in their later years. Now, all of that is designed by making sure that people aren’t left behind. But no one held back is about opportunity as well, seizing the opportunity that’s there from new industries with the shift to net zero, seizing the opportunity to train Australians for those jobs of the future. That is what I mean by those two phrases, and that, I think, is a pretty useful frame I have found for government as well. Are we achieving either of those objectives with what we’re putting forward? GRATTAN: Now, looking abroad, Donald Trump is set to have a major influence way beyond the United States. What do you think the implications will be for Australia? Firstly, in terms of the economy, do you think will be hit with tariffs? And secondly, in terms of the region, and thirdly, in terms of climate change policy internationally? PRIME MINISTER: On the former, the direct impact on us, I can say that the first discussion I had with President Trump to congratulate him on his election was very positive. That when it comes to decisions about tariffs, I believe that the world benefits from free trade. We do have a free trade agreement with the United States. The United States has a trade surplus with us, so it is in their interest for that relationship to continue. GRATTAN: You think they’ll see that? PRIME MINISTER: Well, we will put our arguments forward very clearly. With regard to the impact of a Trump Administration on the region, part of what we will be saying and doing is there’s a recognition that Australia punches above our weight in this region. We are a significant power when it comes to the Pacific, and we exercise that in a range of ways – soft power, diplomatic power, economic influence, support for infrastructure and programs in the Pacific, but also ASEAN. I hosted last year every ASEAN leader in Melbourne, that was extremely successful. And that relationship with the growing economies in our region, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and more is very important, and we play that role. We’re important alliance partners with the United States, but we’re also important partners in the Quad together with Japan and India in this region. So we play an important role going forward. I think that is very much recognised. GRATTAN: And you would be stressing that. And what about climate change? PRIME MINISTER: Climate change – we believe very firmly that climate change action isn’t just about the environment. It’s also about strengthening our economy. That we have an economic advantage by developing green aluminium, green steel, these new industries. So, largely, the impact of the US and their relationship to the Paris Accord shouldn’t be overemphasised, the impact on what we do domestically. And I also think that some of what occurs in the United States – the Inflation Reduction Act – Members of Congress and the Senate, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, will be, I think, reluctant to unwind some of the support for industry which is there because it’s about jobs in their local constituency, and it’s that same motivation that we have of jobs and where does future economic growth come from. I truly believe that action taken this decade can set Australia up for the many decades ahead. GRATTAN: Do you have any idea, incidentally, when you might have your first face to face meeting with the new President? PRIME MINISTER: The President, at this stage, hasn’t had international visitors, bilaterals, and that’s understandable. The Administration is being established. The Quad meeting is expected to take place in the second quarter of this year, perhaps around about June, so perhaps then, if not beforehand. But we will wait and see. We’ll certainly continue to have engagement. And it’s been very positive the engagement that ministers have had, I think the fact that Penny Wong, as our Foreign Minister, was one of the few international guests at the inauguration was a very positive sign. GRATTAN: Now coming back closer to home, I know you’re pitching for majority government, but are you confident that if the election delivered you minority government, you could still deliver your program effectively? Now you do have, of course, experience in this area from the previous Labor Government. PRIME MINISTER: I’m confident that we can achieve an ongoing majority government at this election. I think there are seats that we currently hold that we have good prospects in and indeed in recent days, today, I was in Menzies. Yesterday, I was in Deakin. I think there are seats where Labor can win – GRATTAN: Menzies and Deakin? PRIME MINISTER: Well, Menzies, absolutely we can win and Deakin, we have the same candidate that we had last time, Mr Gregg. So that that’s an advantage when you have a second crack. In Gabriel Ng in Menzies, he’s an outstanding candidate as well. And on the pendulum with the redistribution it has, I think it’s slightly in our corner, but basically 50/50, but it’s slightly towards us. And we’ll be campaigning hard across seats to retain seats that we currently hold, but to win seats off the Coalition and in a range of areas they have particular problems with sitting or former sitting Liberal members who’ve defected, or National Party members who are running as independents. You have as well, the opportunity for us to succeed in seats that are held in Queensland by the Greens party, and we certainly have fantastic candidates in seats, like Renee Coffey in Griffith is campaigning very hard. As is Rebecca Hack in Ryan and Madonna Jarrett in Brisbane. GRATTAN: Talking about independents, do you think you could get Fowler back? PRIME MINISTER: We certainly have a fantastic candidate in Tu Le in Fowler, she’s an accomplished lawyer. She is the daughter of quite prominent people who came to Australia by boat as refugees. She’s articulate, she’s smart, she’s accomplished. She’s from that area. She has lived there her whole life, and she’s having a real crack. GRATTAN: And you think you can? PRIME MINISTER: I think we are certainly in with a big opportunity, because it has historically been a Labor seat, and clearly there was backlash last time round by a perception that Kristina Keneally was not from the area. Tu Le is a great candidate, and she’s campaigning very hard. GRATTAN: The Government this term didn’t introduce what was expected or hoped for, legislation on restricting gambling advertising, and many people were disappointed at that. Do you commit to doing this if you’re re-elected? PRIME MINISTER: We are going to do more, but we’ve already done a lot. We’ve done more than any government since Federation on problem gambling. The BetStop Register was an important reform, banning credit cards from use, making sure that we get much stronger regulation. And one of the things that has also happened as a result of pressure from the Government as well, there’s been a reduction, a bit of self-regulation, if you like, as well, from some of the betting companies in terms of advertising. We also are very conscious that when it comes to problem gambling, it’s not just about betting on football, indeed, overwhelmingly, it’s poker machines is where most losses occur, with problem gamblers. But there are other forms as well, and so we want to make sure – one of the things we did as well was to change the ads from the benign ‘gamble responsibly’ that didn’t really say anything, to have very direct messages to people who are adults, to say, if you bet you will lose, to make that very clear as well. But we acknowledge that there’s more to do, and we’ll continue – GRATTAN: And so you’ll do something on the advertising? PRIME MINISTER: We will continue to consult with stakeholders and continue to take measures. GRATTAN: Now the Parliament is about to meet for a fortnight, and I just want to ask you about a couple of important pieces of legislation that will go to the Senate. Do you think we will see the passage of the legislation for the changes in political donations and election spending, and how important are these changes? PRIME MINISTER: I hope so. And Don Farrell, I spoke with today, as I speak to regularly. He is consulting with people across the Parliament to try to get reforms through – GRATTAN: Is he confident? PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Parliament, we spoke before about the prospect of getting legislation through. Labor has 25 out of 76 senators. So we need a large group of people, either the Coalition or the minor parties – a whole section of them, not just one or two – to support legislation. What I would say is that we are looking to get reform through now, whether that is a bigger, broader reform, or whether it needs to be narrowed down, we’ll wait and see. But we’re very serious about the reforms, which would lower the donation declaration, that would put a cap on donations, a cap on expenditure that would lead to more transparency as well. It’s an important part of supporting our democracy. We see overseas, and we’ve seen people like Clive Palmer here spend over $100 million on a campaign. That’s a distortion of democracy, if one person can spend that much money to try to influence an election, and we don’t find out all that information until much later on. So I want to see greater transparency. This term we said we would have a NACC – a National Anti-Corruption Commission. We’ve delivered that. It’s up and running. It’s operating, and I would like to see this. It wouldn’t begin, of course, until the next election, because of time factors of where we’re at with the Electoral Commission. But I think this would have overwhelming support, and I hope that it receives overwhelming support in the Senate as well. GRATTAN: Now what about the nature positive legislation? It’s also listed. But the Western Australian Government, which is facing an election very soon, is very much against this legislation which sets up a new environmental watchdog. Are you – what is your position on this now? You did pull back from the bill late last year. PRIME MINISTER: Well, I can’t see that it has a path to success. So at this stage, I can say that we won’t be proceeding with it this term. There simply isn’t a majority as there wasn’t last year. The Greens Party, on one hand, have changed their views with a series of demands. They had another one during the week. Said they wouldn’t without linking it to native forestry and linking it to other things. The Liberal Party that, of course, this process began under them. They are the ones who commissioned the Samuel Report that showed that for neither industry or for environmental groups, the current legislation was working. But they have chosen an obstructionist path, which is what they have tended to do on a range of things. So at this point in time, given there is no prospect of it passing, we’ll continue to discuss with stakeholders in the next term, but at this – GRATTAN: It will remain your policy? PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we’ve got, of course, it will be, does the Environment and Protection Act need revision from where it was last century? Quite clearly, it does. Everyone says that that’s the case. It’s a matter of working to, in a practical way, a common sense reform that delivers something that supports industry. I want to see faster approvals. We, in fact, have speeded up approvals substantially, under my Government compared with what was there. But we also want proper sustainability as well. GRATTAN: Now, looking at the polls, you do better with female voters than with male voters. Why do you think your polling with men is lagging, and how will you try and change that? PRIME MINISTER: We know that this is a reversal of what historically has occurred. You wrote a piece on this, Michelle, that I read just a while ago. I think there’s a range of factors to it. One, I think, is a concern that many women have, that the Coalition don’t represent them. They certainly, if you look at the Parliament, they don’t reflect the general population. My Government is now majority women in the Caucus, and that plays through to a policy focus as well. So the gender pay gap is the lowest it’s ever been. We want to do even more, Paid Parental Leave, Single Parenting Payment, superannuation on Paid Parental Leave, the child care policy and women’s workforce participation. All of these measures are important, I think, for some men, there is the impact of social media is a major impact. One of the things, though, that we will be really campaigning very hard on is the impact on blue collar workers of the Coalition promises to get rid of Same Job, Same Pay. The definition of casual in employment, their plan to essentially go back to wages going backwards, not forwards, and that, I think, will have an impact as well. GRATTAN: Now you hoped, of course, that the Voice would be your legacy achievement for this term, but that didn’t come to pass. So what would you nominate as your number one achievement? PRIME MINISTER: Turning around the economy when people were under real pressure on cost of living. If we had followed the path that Peter Dutton’s actions suggest – that is, no tax cuts for every taxpayer, no Energy Bill Relief, no Cheaper Child Care, no Cheaper Medicines, no Free TAFE, you would have seen in a $78 billion deficit rather than what we produced, a $22 billion surplus. Then having those economic circumstances would have meant that you couldn’t do the measures that we wanted to put in place. You would have been under real pressure to do Paid Parental Leave, to do child care reform as we have. Now, we know there is more to do, but I said before the last election that a long term Labor government builds foundations, and one of the things that we’ve done – child care is a good example. I said before the last election, we’d have a change to the child care subsidy. We know that the average family has benefited by around about $2,700 as a result of that subsidy. Now, next term, we’re saying, if you like, phase two is three days guaranteed child care and a billion dollar fund for child care infrastructure. Particularly that we want to link up with schools, so you have that seamless – avoid the double drop off, all of that. And we know that this is good for productivity, workforce participation and population, the three Ps of economic growth. So this is good economic policy, but it’s also good equity policy as well. But it takes time. Had you tried to do all of that measure in one step, I’m sure it would not be successful. So we’re phasing in that reform, as I said, first tranche done. Second tranche committed to in December last year. But we continue to work on reform. Taking climate change seriously. We have turned that around. Not just having a target of 43 per cent but a mechanism to get there, through the Safeguard Mechanism. The Capacity Investment Scheme is about what you need to do, and doing it in partnership with industry, unions and mainstream conservation groups as well, all on one page with that announcement. That’s a significant achievement, given the climate wars that have occurred over a period of time. Now Peter Dutton wants to reconnect them by stopping all of that and going down this nuclear fantasy road. But we have, I think, set up the process with the mechanisms in place to drive that through the economy. GRATTAN: So when you’ve got these foundations in, can you be more radical in the second term, and more adventurous, if you like, on issues such as tax or other economic reforms or some other front? PRIME MINISTER: I think what you can do, the job of reform, of course, is never done. And mine has been a busy Government across economic, social and environmental policy, but we do want to do more. But the economic transformation that the transition to net zero represents is a very significant one. Essentially, we’re seeing globally a transition that is as significant as the Industrial Revolution. This is a new shift in the whole way that the economy functions. And connected up with that, of course, is how do we produce new energy that drives the industries for the future? Be it data centres, for example. I met with Microsoft at their headquarters in Sydney just this week. The prospect that’s there for Australia to be a hub throughout the Indo-Pacific Asian region, is enormous. The prospect that we have when – just a couple weeks ago, we were at Tomago in Newcastle in the Hunter for green aluminium – is exciting for Australia. We are positioned better than anywhere else in the world to benefit, in my view, from this transition that’s occurring. We can be a renewable energy superpower that can be about making more things here, the Future Made in Australia agenda is really significant for us, and if we don’t do that, the alternative isn’t standing still and staying the same, because we’ll go backwards. And it’s significant that Peter Dutton, the first word of his slogan, is ‘back’, and that’s exactly right. He’s promising a smaller economy. His energy plan is for 40 per cent less energy use in 2050. That means making less things here, less industry, less jobs. It’s a myopic vision for Australia, making us smaller. I want Australia to be more successful, to be enlarged in our optimism and our vision, and I want to lead a Government that does that, and I believe I’ve got the capacity, by the amazing talents of people in my Ministry. We’ve had to rebuild the public service during this term. Frankly, they were in a spot of bother, I think. They hadn’t been listened to. Cabinet processes been abandoned. My predecessor, appointed to multiple ministries, and the chaos that was ensuing, there weren’t proper Cabinet processes. You had a Cabinet committee with one member – himself. That that sort of dysfunction that occurred needs to never be returned to. GRATTAN: So just finally, would we see if you are re-elected, any differences in your own style, your own way of governing? Is there anything that you’ve learned that would bring changes in the way you go about things? PRIME MINISTER: One of the things that my mentor, Tom Uren, who you knew well, used to say to me was ‘you’ve got to learn something new every day, and you’ve got to get better every day.’ Better, not just professionally, but as a person grow. And I believe that I do learn something new every day, and I continue to analyse how things are going. How can we do things better? And of course, you can. One of the things that we’ve done is, as I say, value the public service, that takes time to bring that forward. There were billions of dollars being spent on outsourcing government roles. We had to turn that around. Aged care was in crisis. The NDIS was headed for real issues which would have undermined support for it. We, I think, had government processes that had effectively broken down. Our relations with the world, not just with China, obviously with the $20 billion of disruption to trade, but with the Pacific, our Pacific neighbours, had broken down. We were in the naughty corner when we attended climate change conferences around the world as well. We have rebuilt those relationships internationally, but we’ve rebuilt relationships domestically as well. There are things that we will do. GRATTAN: What about your own work style, though? Will you make any changes from what you’ve learned over this last two and a half years? PRIME MINISTER: I make changes as I’m going as well. The idea that you’re just static over a term – GRATTAN: What sort of changes have you made? PRIME MINISTER: I think in some of the processes that we’ve established, continue to work on getting better and better in terms of the office. People that – GRATTAN: Your office, you mean? PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, the people that we’ve brought in, the way that we engage with the community, the way that we function and make decisions as well is important. I think some of the advice that we get as well. Robodebt had an impact on the public service as well that needs to be addressed. Governments need to function and need to be able to make decisions as well. GRATTAN: Is it a harder job than you expected? Because, after all, for a long time, you were close to the top job, as it were, in various roles. But have you found it something of a shock when you actually experienced it over these past two and a half years? PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think preparing for the job, the fact that I’d served as Acting Prime Minister in 2013 and served as Deputy Prime Minister – GRATTAN: Not the same, though. PRIME MINISTER: No, it’s not. But also, being Leader of the House and chairing the Parliamentary Business Committee meant you have access and oversight of every single piece of legislation that’s before the Parliament, every single one. And particularly in the minority Parliament, of course, that was more acute. But I think people underestimate the time that is involved. The international conversations that you have to have. Australia has to be represented at the G20, at the Pacific Island Forum, at ASEAN, at the Quad meetings, at APEC. GRATTAN: You mean the time that the job that takes up? PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, yeah. And that, though, is an incredible honour and a privilege. I mean, I am enjoying the job each and every day – GRATTAN: Do you get exhausted, sometimes? PRIME MINISTER: Oh, of course you do. You’re human. But one of the things I’ve got – you spoke about what I would do differently. I’ve got much better, I’ve always been pretty good, I think, at time management. But I think I’ve got even better than I was as a Minister or Leader of the Opposition, because you have to. So you get better at knowing you have to make a decision. And you also, though – every day when the car drops me off here, we’re speaking here in my Parliament House office, it’s an incredible privilege that I don’t take for granted on any day. Every time I drive through into that courtyard, I feel lifted up and enthused, and the adrenaline kicks in. I think it can keep you going. My staff sometimes say to me, I don’t know how you do it when they see the diary and how busy you can be. But you know, this opportunity to serve and to make a difference to people’s lives is an incredible one, and I feel honoured to have it. I feel humbled that someone who, when I came into this Parliament, and would have been when we first met a long time ago now. You know, I didn’t come here to be Prime Minister with any expectation at all. But I’m here, and I’m very much enjoying it, and I really will be working each and every day as well to make sure that we’re in a position to continue to build in a second term. Not because of wanting to sit in this office, but because of what you can do for people in this office. And I get as well, some fuel in the tank, if you like, by when I’m out and about, like this morning in Box Hill, or last night at a function, people coming up and just saying, “thank you, you did this decision that made a difference to me,” and that to me, is really important. GRATTAN: Well, there’ll be plenty of adrenaline flowing through you and through Peter Dutton in the weeks to come. Prime Minister, thank you very much for talking with us today. PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Michelle. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Chalmers says the budget’s better than it was; Taylor says it’s much worse than it should be 44:35

19 weeks ago44:35

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Lukas Coch, Mick Tsikas/AAP Appropriately, we finish our podcast for 2024 talking to Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his shadow, Angus Taylor because, as the saying goes, “it’s the economy, stupid!” This week’s mid-year budget update showed Australia’s economy in poor shape and the buget’s trajectory mired in a decade of red. Chalmers acknowledges the problems, but looks for positives: yes there are pressures on the budget. Yes, some of those pressures are intensifying. But don’t forget, the budget is $200 billion stronger because of our efforts. That means we avoid $177 billion in the debt that we inherited, and that saves us $70 billion in interest costs. And so I understand that people are focused on the fact that the budget position remains difficult, but it is much, much stronger than it was two and a half years ago. Looking to the next election, Chalmers outlines his ambitions for a second Labor term, if the government is re-elected: well, the energy transformation, for me, is the most important thing. If you think about the earlier reform periods in our economy and in our politics, I think the thing that comes closest to the magnitude and the importance of those earlier waves of reform is the energy transformation. I genuinely feel that people in the future will look back on the 2020s and they’ll judge us on whether we succeeded or failed to get this energy transformation right. And obviously, that’s a big political contest now because of this nuclear insanity from the opposition. I’m very interested in the intersection of technology and human capital and the way our industrial base is changing. So that’s a big part of the story. And then thirdly, where competition policy and productivity policy intersect, trying to make our economy more productive, more competitive and more dynamic. Those are the three things. In addition to all the things you’d expect me to say ongoing budget repair, cost-of-living relief, getting on top of inflation. For Taylor, the economic challenge is getting the supply side right: we needed a plan from this government to restore Australians’ prosperity, to restore their standard of living. We’ve seen a reduction of well over 8% in their standard of living since Labor came to power. And in fact, if anything, there’s a downgrade in Australians’ standard of living in this statement. At the heart of this statement is a big spending, big taxing, high immigration Labor government. $233 billion of red ink over the forwards and deficits as far as the eye can see to the end of the decade. What Labor is seeking to do is make government the centre of the economy. What we need is a private sector that’s mobilised, that’s investing, that’s employing, that’s taking risks and not being crowded out by the public sector. If you want to see sustainable lower inflation and lower interest rates, we know from history the answer isn’t a cash splurge. The answer is getting the supply side of the economy right and encouraging the private sector to get out there and invest. Asked whether, as has been suggested, the Coalition had walked back its migration target, Taylor says: the answer is there’s been no change. It’s as simple as that. But I tell you what has changed. The baseline we’re dealing with on migration has changed quite dramatically. Labor has consistently failed to meet its targets. Its migration targets have increased by over 700,000 over the forwards since Labor came to power. Every time they put an update out, we see an increase in the numbers. The increase in MYEFO was another 80,000 over the forwards, much of which is in the short term in the next year or two. Labor has lost control of immigration. That means that to get to our targets, which we’ve been very clear about, 160,000 in the NOM [net overseas migration] in the short term, bringing down permanent immigration by 25%, it means that the starting point is higher. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: For Mark Dreyfus, antisemitism is very personal 37:15

20 weeks ago37:15

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Mick Tsikas/AAP The attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and another car torching in Sydney have dramatically heightened political tensions over antisemitism. Amid criticism the government has been too slow to act in the past year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week announced an Australian Federal Police taskforce to combat antisemitism, visited the Melbourne synagogue (though his critics said this was belated), and on Wednesday was at Sydney’s Jewish Museum. For Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, a member of Melbourne’s Jewish community, antisemitism is personal. Dreyfus joins the podcast to talk about his family’s story of fleeing Nazi Germany, his own and his community’s experience with antisemitism, and his reaction to criticism of the government’s performance. My grandmother, like many Holocaust survivors, didn’t like to talk about what had happened. She didn’t like to talk about the loss of her parents, who were murdered in Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. But I have talked to my father, who we are blessed is still with us at the age of 96 and living alone, still in good form. He was sent by his parents, my grandparents, with his older brother, alone to Australia, while my grandparents remained in Germany until four months after the Second World War had started, to try to persuade their parents, my great grandparents, to leave. Asked his father’s reactions to recent events, Dreyfus says, It reminded him of Kristallnacht [the 1938 attack on Jews]. He said Kristallnacht was the prompt for his assimilated German parents […] to make preparations to leave and try to persuade their parents to leave and make preparations to send their children away. Of the antisemitism recently directed at him personally, Directed at me, I’ve seen directly antisemitic abuse in a form and with a frequency that I have certainly not experienced since I was elected to the federal parliament in 2007. Asked if further federal laws are required to combat antisemitism Dreyfus sugggests the states could do more, Street conduct, street behaviour is very much a state matter. I’ve seen that some state governments, particularly in New South Wales and in Victoria, have started to talk about the possibility of creating some regulation of demonstration-type behaviour [outside places of worship] similar to what’s been done to protect reproductive health clinics, where there’s a distance that’s been created by law within which people wishing to demonstrate against abortion are not permitted to do so. I’d be encouraging state governments if they think that it’s appropriate to put that sort of control on demonstrations […] to do so. On the accusations by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that the government’s stance on Israel in the United Nations has led indirectly to the local attacks, Dreyfus says, With the greatest of respect to Mr Netanyahu, he is wrong on two counts there. He’s wrong to say that our government is anything other than a close friend of Israel. And he’s wrong just to connect votes on resolutions at the United Nations with the occurrence of violent antisemitic attacks here in Australia. Dreyfus criticises the politicisation of the antisemitism issue, I am very sad to have seen the way in which Peter Dutton and senior Liberals have chosen to politicise and seek party political advantage from the atrocious event of the burning of a synagogue. But sadly, that is what they have done. We heard [Liberal] senator Jane Hume offering up just this morning on radio that, somehow, our government had enabled terrorist acts. Now, that’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable that Peter Dutton should seek to politicise the appalling event of the burning of the synagogue. And it’s not acceptable that any of his colleagues should seek to do the same thing. E&OE TRANSCRIPT PODCAST THE CONVERSATION THURSDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2024 SUBJECTS: Antisemitism; Australia-Israel relations; International Criminal Court; National Anti-Corruption Commission; Whistleblowers. GRATTAN: We’re joined today by Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus. Mark Dreyfus, you’re Jewish and you’re from Melbourne, so I want to start with something of your own back story. The family of your father George Dreyfus, who’s a well-known Australian composer now, fled Nazi Germany when George was just a boy. Can you tell us something about their story and how much did this experience influence you when you were growing up? What did you hear about it? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I didn’t hear a great deal, because my grandmother, like many Holocaust survivors, didn’t like to talk about what had happened. She didn’t like to talk about the loss of her parents, who were murdered in Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, but I have talked to my father, who we are blessed, is still with us at the age of 96 and living alone and still in good form. He was sent by his parents, my grandparents, with his older brother alone, to Australia, while my grandparents remained in Germany until four months after the war, the Second World War, had started to try to persuade their parents, my great grandparents to leave. So, here’s my father and his older brother being cared for in a Jewish run orphanage in Melbourne. They landed at Station Pier in Melbourne in July 1939 and waited anxiously for six months, not knowing if their parents would turn up. None of the other children who had accompanied them on the ship from Britain had their parents turn up. They remained orphans. And so that was the start, of my father, at the age of 11, arriving in Australia in July 1939. My grandmother had good reason not to talk about what had happened then, because she’d failed to persuade her parents to leave. They said, “We are Germans. We are not leaving.” and in 1942 they were put on the train to the east and murdered in two different places, in Theresienstadt and in Auschwitz, and so too. my grandfather’s surviving parent also died. So that’s a bit of family history. My father was living in Berlin at the age of 10 when Kristallnacht occurred. And for your listeners who aren’t familiar with Kristallnacht, that was the Night of Broken Glass, the night on which, organized by the Nazi regime, by the Third Reich with its Stormtroopers carrying out the violence, the windows of Jewish businesses, Jewish shops throughout Germany were smashed and synagogues were burned. And so that’s where we come to with the event last Friday in Melbourne, which immediately for every Jewish Australian raised that echo, if you like, of Kristallnacht, the burning of synagogues across Germany. And I’m not even beginning to talk about centuries of pogroms in Poland and throughout Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, where synagogues were burned. The image that the idea of the burning of the synagogue is something that strikes fear and provokes incredible distress for Jewish Australians. Have you GRATTAN: Have you talked at all with your father since that event? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Absolutely. I talk to him every day, actually, since last Friday. GRATTAN: And what’s his feeling? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Terrible. It reminded him Kristallnacht was the prompt for his parents to decide, it’s what he said to me earlier this week, he said Kristallnacht was the prompt for his assimilated German parents, who hadn’t been particularly observant Jews. They saw themselves more as Germans than Jewish, that was the more important part of their identity. They decided, he remembers it very sharply, they decided then, in mid-November of 1938 that they had to make preparations to leave and try to persuade their parents to leave and make preparations to send their children away. All of which then happened in that my father and his brother arrived in Australia. My grandparents tried to persuade their parents to leave and failed, and then they themselves made their way to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in January of 1940 after the war had started. So yes, I have talked to my dad every day this week. It’s a terrible thing to have happened, and perhaps that little account might explain the level of distress and grief and anger that the event has caused for Jewish Australians. But I would suggest that it’s also caused all of those emotions for the great bulk of the Australian community who are horrified at the burning of a place of worship. GRATTAN: Well, you said this week when you were at the Prime Minister’s press conference that you couldn’t remember a time of such intense antisemitism in Australia before this incident of the other day. And apart from that, what has been your experience of antisemitism over the past year, and what’s been the experience of your friends in Melbourne? What are they telling you? How are they being received? What issues have they run into as Jewish Melburnians? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: It’s abuse on the street. We haven’t got long enough, actually, Michelle, for me to recount to you all of the instances and incidents that have been recounted to me shockingly since October the 7th 2023. I had thought in the immediate aftermath of the murder of more than 1200 people in Israel by Hamas terrorists, murder and rape and violence and kidnapping and hostage taking in shocking scenes reminiscent of pogrom like activity, I had thought that after that event and series of events, there would be a great deal of sympathy for the victims in Israel. Horror at Hamas and at a gathering of about 6000 of the Melbourne Jewish community I spoke, representing the Government of Australia, to a crowd of Melbourne, the Melbourne Jewish community on the 13th of October. I’ve got a very sharp recollection of it, and we all thought that there would be an outpouring of sympathy, and for a short time, there was. But as the months wore on, we saw more and more deeply personalised protest activity being directed at Jewish Australians. That bringing of tensions from the conflict in the Middle East to Australia and directing hatred and prejudice against Jewish Australians. Now, the kind of incidents that I’ve had reported to me have been abuse on the street, swastikas and other or Hamas symbols being put on Jewish businesses, abuse in the form of other communications, the doxxing event of the personal details of more than 600 Jewish creatives being posted online in a malicious way, the frequent demonstrations chanting antisemitic slogans, not just anti-Israel, but antisemitic slogans, abuse being directed at Jewish students on campuses around Australia, abuse being directed at Jewish children in primary and secondary schools around Australia. And I’ll stop there, because I think that’s just a sample. Directed at me I’ve seen directly antisemitic abuse in a form and with a frequency that I have certainly not experienced since I was elected to the Federal Parliament in 2007. Of course, from time to time there, there’s been an antisemitic jibe directed at me, because all Jews have to have experienced that from time to time. What’s occurred, however, in the last year, is an extraordinary increase in the level of abuse directed at Jewish Australians. This has been measured by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and by the Anti-Defamation Commission and others. And so this is not just my personal experience and not just the personal experience that I’m anecdotally relaying here. It’s a fact that there’s been an unprecedented level of antisemitic activity in all forms that’s arisen in the last year. GRATTAN: Do you think that this has been latent in our community in quite a strong form before the events of October, 7 last year? Because it just seems to have bubbled up so dramatically. ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Well, as has been observed, antisemitism is thousands of years old, and it’s not that there has not been antisemitism in Australia to some extent institutionalised in earlier times in Australian history. But equally, we are a country that’s had the first Australian born Governor-General, after whom my seat is named. Many other prominent Jewish Australians have made an immense contribution to our country for many decades. So, in recent decades, overt antisemitism has become less and less common. You should take me as saying it’s not that it ever went away entirely, and it’s not that there hasn’t been, from time to time, incidents of antisemitism, it’s the frequency and intensity of the antisemitic behaviour that’s been occurring over the last year that everyone is commenting on. Every Australian Jew has noticed and that’s really what I was attempting to say in the interview that you heard last Monday, GRATTAN: Given all that you have described do you accept that the Government should have done more earlier, like setting up this taskforce that we now have? Did this problem to some extent, just get away from the government? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: We’ve done a great deal, and indeed, we’ve done more than previous governments have done. I’ll just list some of the things we outlawed. Last year, we outlawed the Nazi salute. We outlawed the public display of hate symbols, of terrorist symbols. Just now, we’ve criminalised doxxing in a Privacy Bill that was passed in the last sitting week. Doxxing is the malicious release of personal information. I described it as occurring to a group of some 600 Jewish creatives. Sadly, Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party voted against that legislation in the last sitting week. We’ve appointed Australia’s first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, that’s Jillian Segal, following some 30 odd other countries which have special envoys to combat antisemitism. We’ve appointed our first National Student Ombudsman, who will be able to deal with issues of student safety on campuses. I’ve got legislation right now before the Parliament, it’s passed the House, it’s in the Senate, to strengthen criminal offences for hate crimes. And I’d make the point that immediately following the 7 October terrorist attack in Israel, we committed $25 million for improved safety and security at Jewish sites across the country, including schools. And on Sunday, that is, two days after the burning of the synagogue in Melbourne, we committed a further $32.5 million to improve security at Jewish community sites, including synagogues and schools. So, there’s a whole range of measures that we’ve taken at every opportunity. The Prime Minister, I, the Foreign Minister and other senior ministers, as well as every member of our Government has condemned antisemitism. I’ve been very saddened, I’ve got to say Michelle, at the way in which a number of senior Liberals have sought to politicise antisemitism, to politicise, shockingly, the burning of a synagogue in Melbourne last Friday. The first thing that Peter Dutton thought to say was to attack the Prime Minister and the Government, and they’ve continued with it since now. That is not at all the right response by a senior Australian politician. The right response is to create community unity so that we all stand against antisemitism. The right response is actually to support the government. GRATTAN: Do you think, despite the list of things that you’ve given us, that more legislation is needed? In particular, should there be some move for a uniform national approach, for example, to protect people from harassment at places of worship? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: This is a Federation question. In a way, it’s often simpler for the Commonwealth to legislate in the areas that are available to it, where we have got Constitutional authority. Street conduct, street behaviour is very much a state matter. I’ve seen that some state governments have, particularly in New South Wales and in Victoria, have started to talk about the possibility of creating some regulation of demonstration type behaviour as similar to what’s been done to protect reproductive health clinics, where there’s a distance that’s been created by law within which people wishing to demonstrate against abortion are not permitted to do so, and all of that’s worth considering. But I’ve been around in the Federal Parliament long enough, and I’ve been a lawyer in Australia for long enough, to know that attempts at uniformity are often not successful, and I wouldn’t want to be waiting to act. And we haven’t waited to act simply because people say we should have uniform legislation. I’d be encouraging state governments, if they think that it’s appropriate, to put that sort of control on demonstrations. I’d be encouraging them to do so. What I am clear about is that police, state police and Australian Federal Police officers, assisted by Commonwealth agencies, have been working around the clock to bring to justice all of the people that have committed these kinds of hate crimes. We’ve had, you know, and again, I’ve got to be cautious about talking about this, but we’ve had some arrests in respect of earlier incidents. We’ve had people that have been charged and indeed been convicted of making the Nazi salute. We’ve had people who’ve been charged and been convicted for the display of Nazi symbols, and I know that that police work, that tireless police work, is continuing. GRATTAN: The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the other day that it was impossible to separate last week’s attack from what he described, and I quote him, as “the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor Government in Australia.” What’s your response to that? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Well, with the greatest of respect to Mr. Netanyahu, he is wrong on two counts there. He’s wrong to say that our government is anything other than a close friend of Israel, and he’s wrong to connect votes on resolutions at the United Nations with the occurrence of violent antisemitic attacks here in Australia. I’m looking for community unity here Michelle. I’m looking for, not finger pointing, as we’ve seen, and I’d rather actually talk about Australian politicians than Israeli politicians. I’m looking for community unity and political unity. I was driven to, because we were on the point of the 10th anniversary of the terrible events of the Lindt Cafe siege, which occurred on the 15th and 16th of December 2014 so just on 10 years ago, I was then the Shadow Attorney General. We’d been in Opposition for over a year, and I went back to look at what I remembered as a very striking press conference given by the then Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten on the 16th of December 2014, Mr Shorten called for unity. He was invited by journalists to criticise the government. Questions directed at why a known criminal with extremist ideas that was the perpetrator wasn’t in custody. And Bill Shorten didn’t accept that invitation to criticise the government. Instead, he said this, and I’ve got it in front of me. He said, this is at a press conference about the Martin Place siege, he said, “I support the actions of the Prime Minister in dealing with our safety and security.” He’s talking about Tony Abbott. “Within an hour of hearing about the hostage taking, I was in contact with the Prime Minister. I believe Australians can rightly expect that Liberal and Labor at times like this, are united. The very best thing we can offer is our unity by sticking together. That is what I think Australians want to see now.” Those wise words from Bill Shorten are just as true today as they were in December of 2014 and I am very sad to have seen the way in which Peter Dutton and senior Liberals have chosen to politicise and seek party political advantage from the atrocious event of the burning of a synagogue, but sadly, that is what they have done. And I called earlier this week for them to stop doing that. They have not heeded those calls. They’ve gone on to double down, if anything, and we heard Senator Jane Hume offering up just this morning on radio that somehow our government had enabled terrorist acts. Now that’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable that Peter Dutton should seek to politicise the appalling event of the burning of a synagogue, and it’s not acceptable that any of his colleagues should seek to do the same thing. But so keen is Peter Dutton to get political advantage that he stopped one of his frontbenchers, Senator Paterson, from reading out a statement at a joint press conference that was being held by Josh Burns, the Labor Member for Macnamara with Senator Paterson. Mr. Burns was unable to speak at the time because of some throat condition, and had asked Senator Paterson, and Senator Paterson had agreed to read out this statement, and Mr Dutton stopped him. Now that tells you all you need to know, sadly, about the approach that Mr Dutton is taking to this, and we he should be doing a lot better. We need to be standing together against antisemitism, not looking for party political advantage, not seeking to divide. GRATTAN: Of course, one of the complications with this issue, which is different from the Lindt Cafe one is that foreign and domestic policy has both fronts are involved. So the question that is important, I think, is, how does the government now see its relationship with Israel? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: We remain a close friend of Israel. GRATTAN: Despite differences? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Yes and friends can differ. Friends are able to have disagreements. Just like Australians should be able to have disagreements in a courteous way, so too can countries have disagreements in courteous ways. We are a steadfast friend of Israel, right from the very moment of the creation of Israel by the United Nations when the Chifley Government, in the person of Doc Evatt, cast the Australian vote, the first positive vote for the creation of Israel in the United Nations, and that has remained the position of the Australian Labor Party ever since. It wasn’t, as it happens, an immediate reaction of the then Liberal Party in opposition, and it certainly wasn’t the reaction of the British Government, but Australia was proud to support the creation of the State of Israel, and we remain a close friend. The Labor Party remains a close friend of Israel. Australia remains a close friend of Israel, and I don’t think there can be any doubt of that. We are also remaining committed to the creation of two states, because that solution, the two state solution, is the only way in which we will get to lasting peace where a state of Palestine is brought into existence. We can argue about how and when that’s to happen, but that should remain the long term objective. It certainly remains the objective of our government, and I think it remains the objective of most of the world that a state of Palestine ought to be brought into existence. GRATTAN: Just one other point on this front before we finish up with other questions. If, in the unlikely event the Israeli Prime Minister came to Australia, would we comply with the International Criminal Courts arrest warrant against him? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals. And it’s a condition of the Rome Statute which was signed by the Howard Government and by Alexander Downer as Foreign Minister, in which Australia agreed to the creation of the International Criminal Court. There are a number of rules and conditions around Australia’s support for the International Criminal Court and one of them is that, just as with extradition matters and other mutual assistance matters, we don’t comment on arrest warrants. GRATTAN: Just on other issues, the Government set up the National Anti-Corruption Commission, but it’s had a bit of a difficult start with some teething problems, including over the Commissioner’s handling of a conflict of interest situation relating to the Robodebt affair. What’s your assessment of the beginning of the NACC? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Well, first of all, on the matter you’ve just mentioned, which is the conflict of interest issue, we’ve seen, first of all, an investigation by the Inspector, and then a public report by the Inspector, which is the system that our Government legislated, in the bill that I brought to the Parliament in 2022, working. In other words, we’ve got an independent National Anti-Corruption Commission. In order to ensure that it is correctly operating we’ve also legislated for an Inspector. And the Inspector, Gail Furness, responded to complaints about the conduct of Commissioners by investigating and producing a report which is now being acted on by the National Anti-Corruption Commission in that the decision about the referral from the Robodebt Royal Commission will be reconsidered by an eminent person. As to the National Anti-Corruption Commission itself, as at today, because the Commission publishes weekly statistics, I’ve got them in front of me. The Commission is conducting 38 preliminary investigations. It’s conducting 26 corruption investigations, including six joint investigations. It’s overseeing or monitoring 19 investigations by other agencies. It’s had five matters before the court, and it’s got still some 550 referral referrals pending assessment. So you can see that there’s a very considerable scope of activity. Like you I read commentary from time to time, and I can see that a number of commentators are saying, they would like to see outcomes from one or more of the 26 corruption investigations that the National Anti-Corruption Commission is carrying out. GRATTAN: Would you? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Well, this is the point. It’s an independent National Anti-Corruption Commission. I am the Minister. Not only was I the Minister responsible for bringing the legislation to the Parliament, I’m also the Minister responsible for making sure that the National Anti-Corruption Commission has got an adequate budget, I’m responsible for appointing Commissioners to the Commission, and I am also, and I take this very seriously, responsible for ensuring the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. It is an independent Commission, and I am confident that we it will bring these investigations that it is now carrying out, and it’s telling the Australian public that it is carrying out, to a conclusion at an appropriate time. And I think we’ve all seen over the last 35 years, as each state progressively adopted an anti-corruption commission, starting with the New South Wales ICAC, that you can have difficulties if you rush investigations. You can certainly have difficulties if you have too much of the hearings in public, which is why we’ve we put a restriction - we didn’t prohibit public hearings, as some states chose to do - but we’ve said that you needed exceptional circumstances. As yet, the Commission hasn’t chosen to hold any public hearings, but I’m confident that when these investigations are concluded, as they are successively concluded, we will begin to see results from the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and I am very pleased that one of the great achievements of our government was to bring into existence, in really double quick time, so that it commenced its operations on the first of July 2023 a very powerful a completely Independent National Anti-Corruption Commission. It’s going to serve Australia very well in the decades to come, because that’s the time frame in which you need to consider something like the National Anti-Corruption Commission. I appreciate people always want quick results and there’s impatience, but I am confident that this is an institution of lasting value to Australia. Even the knowledge that you can be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission has, obviously, the quality of improving the way in which decision making takes place. It has an immense deterrent effect on corrupt activity right across the Commonwealth Government. Just that knowledge that you might be referred, the knowledge that there have been thousands of referrals that the Commission has had to investigate, in itself, sends a message right across the Commonwealth, and it’s a good message. GRATTAN: There have been growing calls for the creation of another institution that’s a Whistleblower Protection Authority. Now you’ve taken some steps on whistleblower protection, I’m aware, but will you move for such an authority if the Government’s re-elected and you’re Attorney-General? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I think I’ll give a bit of context to this. I’m the only Australian Attorney-General that’s ever brought whistleblower protection legislation to the Australian Parliament. I brought the Public Interest Disclosure Act to the Parliament in 2013.We were the last Australian jurisdiction to bring in whistleblower protection. Every state and territory already had it by 2013. I legislated a statutory review which was done by Philip Moss, and he reported to the former government in 2016. They simply allowed his report to gather dust. I didn’t. When we came to office in May of 2022 I immediately set about looking at that report by Philip Moss to determine which of the recommendations that he had made, remain relevant and current, and I brought I brought legislation to the Parliament to implement some of those moss recommendations. And I’m now in the process of consulting about what further reforms should take place. GRATTAN: So there may be an authority? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Well, that’s the question that’s going to be considered in this consultation. But exactly what further is needed to make sure that our whistleblower protection scheme works well, is the matter of our further consultation. I would say this that we had, every year since the act commenced in late 2013, we’ve had some hundreds of disclosures under the Public Interest Disclosure Act by Australian public servants in conditions where they are protected. And since the reforms that I made to the Public interest Disclosure Act in 2023 took effect, the number of disclosures by Australian public servants has risen substantially. It’s in the hundreds each year. So contrary to some suggestions that have been made by some commentators and some crossbench members of the Australian Parliament that the system is not working, indeed, it is working. It’s working well, but it’s a system that we can always improve on, and that’s why I’m continuing consultations about what further reforms are needed. But I’ve been a little concerned about some of the commentary which has suggested that Australian public servants who wish to report wrongdoing are not protected. Nothing could be further from the truth. Australian public servants who wish to report wrongdoing are protected, and the Ombudsman reports annually on the numbers of protected disclosures. And it’s quite apparent from those annual reports of the Ombudsman that the system is in fact working. GRATTAN: It’s still a work in progress. Mark Dreyfus, thank you very much for talking with us today and also sharing a family story which makes the whole antisemitic issue so personal for you. That’s all from today’s politics podcast. Thank you to my producer, Ben Roeper. We’ll be back with another interview soon, but goodbye for now. ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thank you, Michelle. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Simon Birmingham on Liberal moderates, regrets, and Donald Trump 37:34

22 weeks ago37:34

37:34

Lukas Coch/AAP Opposition Senate leader and former senior minister in the Coalition government Simon Birmingham has announced he will quit parliament . Birmingham, one of the few remaining moderates in the Liberals’ ranks, is shadow foreign minister. Now , aged 50, he’s defecting to a (yet to be announced) commercial job. He joins the podcast to talk about the highs and lows of his time in politics and the Liberal Party, as well as to share his biggest regret and a couple of anecdotes. So why is he going? I don’t think I have the same partisan fight in me that I probably had in the early days of my career, and so I think there is an element of recognising that perhaps politics, as is, requires and demands people to take on the fight in our system. And the team deserves people who will take on that fight. I’ve always put the team first, as much as I possibly can, and that requires compromise at all times – and in the end, after a while, you start to tire of the compromise. So all of that together with yes, a great and exciting opportunity that sets my career up for hopefully the next ten, 20 or longer years of work life. […] and still enables my family to stay in Adelaide, where their careers and education are flourishing. Speaking about regrets, Birmingham highlights climate change: I wish we had better landed policies and direction around how Australia responds to climate change. It’s been the thread right throughout my career – of division and politicking. I think the biggest missed opportunity was probably the National Energy Guarantee, which Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg came so very close to landing. It’s actually a mechanism that could have strongly supported a nuclear energy market, for example, as well, and I wish that we had found the way to see that through because I think our policy landscape would be much better today had that been the case. As a leading moderate within the Liberal Party, Birmingham reflects on the teal movement and where it leaves the moderates: I think the last election, in particular, not only sent us a clear message of dissatisfaction from more moderately aligned and teal-leaning seats. But it simultaneously left the party room less well-equipped to respond to those messages because we lost some people who were really about to come into their prime and their own. People like Trent Zimmerman and Tim Wilson and Katie Allen and Dave Sharma [Sharma has since returned to parliament as a senator], they were becoming much stronger and more authoritative voices in the party room, who I have missed greatly in this term and where I think we would have been better placed having them there. I just hope that coming into the next election where […] we’ve got some great new candidates in different seats who I think are true custodians of the liberal tradition in the Liberal Party, I hope that we can win those seats back and restore some of that balance in the party room. With the return of Donald Trump, Birmingham recounts his experiences when he was trade minister during the Trump Mark 1 administration: I remember at [a] dinner with Donald Trump […] we did get into a debate about the trade balance between our countries, and I ultimately reached into some of the documents I had and handed a graph across the table that showed for how long and how significantly the US has had a trade surplus over Australia. Whilst I don’t think trade relations should be about the binary of surplus v deficit but, in the end, if that’s what’s going to sway his thinking, we’ve got to pitch it in that regard. He also recalls: I was scheduled to go from Ottawa through to Washington, DC on my way back to Australia, and Joe Hockey rang me while I was in Ottawa and said, mate your New Zealand counterpart came here on his way to Ottawa and he asked to get the same exemptions to the steel and aluminium tariffs that Australia has got. And Bob Lighthizer, who was Trump’s equivalent of the trade minister, went nuts at the New Zealanders and marched them out of his office saying, ‘you’re not getting it, and Australia never should have either’. And Joe said to me, mate, I think it might be best if you have a family emergency and head back to Australia. Lo and behold, I took Joe’s wise advice and counsel, made my way straight back to Australia, making apologies to those in D.C. I was meant to see. E&OE TRANSCRIPT Interview on Michelle Grattan on The Conversation podcast 3 December 2024 Michelle Grattan: Simon Birmingham, Opposition Leader in the Senate and the Liberal Party’s foremost moderate, has called time on his parliamentary career. Like Bill Shorten on the other side of politics, Birmingham is choosing, rather than being forced to start an entirely new line of work in his 50s. A former minister who held the education, trade and finance portfolios in the Coalition government, Birmingham is leaving to go into the commercial world, although he’s not specified what job he’s taking up. He joins us today to talk about his decision, the highs and lows of a political life and the state of the Liberal Party. Simon Birmingham, you’re quitting when the Liberals have at least an outside chance of winning the election. And if that happened, you’d have been foreign minister. So, to depart now is a big decision. I think of Josh Frydenberg, for example, who’d walk over the proverbial hot coals for a way back to politics. Was this a midlife crisis where you just fed up with the demands of politics, or did you just get an offer that was too good to refuse? Simon Birmingham: [Laughs] Well, Michelle, I think it’s a little bit of all of the above, if I’m being honest. I don’t think I have the same partisan fight in me that I probably had in the early days of my career. And so, I think there is an element of recognising that perhaps politics, as is, requires and demands people to take on the fight in our system and the team deserves people who will take on that fight. And I’ve always put the team first as much as I possibly can. And that requires compromise at all times. In the end, after a while, you start to tire of the compromise and if you can’t do that, then you can’t be an effective member of the team. So, all of that together with, yes, a great and exciting opportunity that sets my career up for hopefully the next, you know, 10, 20 or longer years of work life, if I’m to use you as a great example, and still enables my family to stay in Adelaide, where their careers and education are flourishing. Michelle Grattan: Now you first entered the Senate in 2007. What do you think’s changed in politics since then, and has it changed for the better or for worse? You mentioned partisanship. My feeling is that it’s become more hyper partisan over those years. Is that your perception? Simon Birmingham: I think we’ve followed very much the global trends and so, yes, I think things are more partisan than they probably used to be and particularly if you think about the tales of Senate committee collegiality, cross party cooperation, it still happens and it’s important when it does, but it’s probably not as embedded as it once was and even when I started. I think we shouldn’t catastrophize; politicians and politics have always been to a degree, you know, unpopular, ridiculed. I’ve sort of learnt over the years people tend to have a view of the collective, which is quite negative. But then of the individual it’s often ‘but my MP is not that bad, or I like that particular one or other’, and so it’s interesting when you reflect on how community engagement and perception of politics is, no overall, but often gives the exception to the one that they know who is closer to them. I think I’d have to say since 2007, that the biggest change is the fragmentation in the media market, the rise of social media as a source of news and information, and that I think that is a driver of the different types of populism, tribalism and partisanship that we see nowadays that is of a different nature to what used to be the case and sadly I think also takes out of the cycle time for issues to be properly debated and considered; that everything moves so damn quickly that there is very little scope for big reforms to have weeks and weeks of proper debate and analysis. Michelle Grattan: And also, I think social media has brought a lot more nastiness, hasn’t it? But is it a case of bringing nastiness that was always there just to the public surface, or has it in fact bred more nastiness? Simon Birmingham: Sometimes I say that I think we’ve gone back a couple of centuries to the old times when the conspiracy theorists used to produce the town flyer that would circulate around the local village, and that we’ve kind of broken down almost through some of those online sources back into that way. I am conscious though of the impact of the nastiness. You know, recently my great, quite new colleague Maria Kovacic spoke in the Senate in relation to one of the abortion and termination related issues and the hate that Maria’s office and she personally copped after that was really quite shocking and equally reminded me of how much my skin has thickened up and hardened up throughout close to 20 years in public life. But that for, not just Maria but her staff in a much newer office, they’re not as accustomed to batting away that and it was a reminder of actually how vicious it can be and that those of us who may have become battle-hardened actually should reflect on that, and also need to make sure we’re giving support to colleagues. And as tough and strong as Maria is, it was an important reminder to me of making sure other colleagues understand how important it is to rally around one another, especially most particularly, when you might disagree on the issue, but you should absolutely back each other in terms of the courtesy and the conventions and the respect that should be had, even where you have a different opinion. Michelle Grattan: Now, you arrived just before the extraordinary revolving door of prime ministers on both sides of politics and you said in your farewell speech that you’ve seen, and I quote “too many prime ministers, and I acknowledge the political blood on my own hands during those more turbulent times”. You were a player in the coup by Malcolm Turnbull against Tony Abbott. Looking back, was that in fact a good idea, that coup? And do you regret your part at all in that? Simon Birmingham: Michelle, I don’t regret it. I regret the whole sequence of revolving doors that that we did go through, and I don’t think that was a great cycle for Australian democracy and certainly, I wanted to say that - because there’s no point shying away from the role that I played in that revolving door on that particular occasion. And it weighed heavily on me at the time. You know, I’m somebody who sleeps very soundly at night, but I have never had a more sleepless period than in the week leading up to that vote and the removal of Tony as PM. As much as Tony and I come from different philosophical strands of the Liberal Party, when he got elected PM, I had hoped and believed we were putting those challenges behind us, but ultimately circumstances played out in the way the government was travelling at the time, I believed then and I still believe the case that the change was necessary for us to succeed at that next election. I would wish that perhaps we’d, after that change, hit the ground running a little more emphatically and that perhaps all that we started to achieve in Malcolm’s second year as prime minister, we’d really bitten the bullet on in his first year and I think that might have put us in a better position when we went to that 2016 election than ultimately proved to be the case. Michelle Grattan: So, what are your relations with Tony Abbott like now, and more generally, how enduring can relationships and friendships be in politics, even on your own side? Have you lost friends during these internal party battles over leadership, over issues? Simon Birmingham: Tony and I, I think, picked up at least a working relationship again when I was trade minister, and he was great in terms of wanting to put Australia’s interests first in his engagement with the UK and India and helping to achieve FTAs and so we had some long discussions at that stage. I don’t, frankly, expect Tony to ever forgive me or people who played a big role in that, to be booted out of the prime minister’s office, is something that of course, you’re never going to be happy about and so, I understand his perspective there. But we have a functional and working relationship now and that’s to his credit. But on the whole I think I’ve been lucky. You know, I invented something that I anecdotally call coffee with Mitch or public coffee which was that Mitch Fifield and I tended to be on opposite sides of a couple of votes over the years. And I’d always say to Mitch, let’s go and have coffee at Aussies so the press gallery and the colleagues and everybody else can see that even though they know, on this ballot or that - and it wasn’t the Malcolm-Tony one clearly - but on others, even though they know we’re falling on opposite sides of the ledger that we’re still mates and we still get on. And that’s the case with many others. Jamie Briggs who’s returning in a less public way to working with politics; Briggsy was a big loser of course out of the change in prime minister, but we remain very close mates. And I think it’s important to find the way to keep those relationships. But you’ve got to be honest and acknowledge the hurt, the pain, the difficulty that can come from those ballots and, and work it through like any friends do when you have those tough times. Michelle Grattan: Well, what about your relationship with Peter Dutton? Because obviously over the years you would have been on different sides on all sorts of things to Peter Dutton. How has your relationship been with Peter Dutton as leader? Simon Birmingham: It’s been good, Michelle. You know, Peter hasn’t done everything that I might have argued for around the shadow cabinet table and no leader will you ever win every argument with. But I do feel listened to by Peter. I do have confidence that although he may have more of a Queensland conservative lens to his thinking than my more liberal thinking, in the end you know Peter is much more pragmatic, practical and down to earth in the politics that he brings forward. He is not an ideologue. And, I think he has valued my counsel. I think it has had influence at times and I’m certainly not walking away because of Peter, or any qualms I have about the possibility of working with Peter in the future. In fact, I would have relished the opportunity to be part of, you know, his leadership team in government, if it had come about and I’ll have some regrets if he wins and I’m not part of that, but I’m going forward positively into a new life. Michelle Grattan: Well, just speaking of regrets and looking back over issues, what’s your biggest regret in terms of issues? Simon Birmingham: I wish we had better landed policies and direction around how Australia responds to climate change. It has been the thread right throughout my career of division and politicking and I think the biggest missed opportunity was probably the National Energy Guarantee, which Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg came so very close to landing and to legislating. It of course didn’t just address the emissions side, but also really sought to address the reliability proposition. It’s actually a mechanism that could have strongly supported a nuclear energy market, for example, as well, and I wish that we had found the way to see that through because I think our policy landscape would be much better today had that been the case. Michelle Grattan: Well, in fact, it ended up delivering a mortal blow, didn’t it, to Malcolm Turnbull. Simon Birmingham: It did end up being the piece where history, in a sense, repeated itself that Malcolm first lost the leadership in opposition over those negotiations with the government of the day or Rudd government over climate policy and of course then lost his own prime ministership and the leadership a second time over his policy proposals around climate policy. But I think the thing about the National Energy Guarantee was that it wasn’t seeking to be an economy-wide carbon price; It was certainly not a carbon tax; It was a clever, sophisticated energy market mechanism that really could’ve helped us address emissions, reliability and ultimately affordability in the smartest possible way and it’s an enduring loss that it didn’t get there. Michelle Grattan: On a lighter note, can you share with our listeners a couple of the quirkier political moments that you’ve seen, the sort of stories that you’ll be talking about at dinner parties in Adelaide in the years to come? Simon Birmingham: Well, I think a couple. One, you know, one quite light-hearted and the other with a serious edge to it. It is known I joined Scott Morrison for a dinner with Donald Trump in Osaka, on the margins of the G20 after Scott’s 2019 election victory. And I do remember during that dinner, at one stage Trump was saying: “You know, you guys in Australia, you’re a long way away from America. But, you know, you’re not as far away as those guys in New Zealand”. And we all kind of sat there thinking to ourselves, which way do you fly to Australia? Because we generally, if we were coming from the US, would fly over New Zealand to get to Australia. But of course, we’re all far too polite to correct the then and now incoming president. The more serious one, and I partly referenced it when I acknowledged Rebekha Sharkie, the Member for Mayo in my valedictory speech, was during school funding debates and seeking to get that legislation through the Senate. Jacqui Lambie, who was then a very new Senator, Jacqui was really kind of one of the key final swing votes and she was coming under huge pressure from the Catholic school lobby and the education union at the time, and eventually Bec Sharkie and Cathy McGowan went around to Jacqui’s office and said, Jacqui, you’ve just got to go down to the Senate and tell people where you stand. And once you just put it on the public record, this is what I’m doing and I’m not budging all of those pesky lobbyists and all of the phone calls and all of the pressure and even almost bullying, it’ll all go away. And I remember being in the Senate and really nervous, kind of, you know, where’s Jacqui? What’s happening? And then suddenly I saw her walk into the chamber, literally accompanied by Rebekha Sharkie and Cathy McGowan, and I sort of heaved this big sigh of relief that they had helped to get her over the line and when I look back on those reforms that I’m very proud of in getting the Gonski school funding in a more principled state and consistent with those recommendations, I think it’s also the fact that the independents like Bec and Cathy and Jacqui were persuaded of those benefits that I hope was a demonstration at the time of how right we were to pursue them. Michelle Grattan: Now, you’re currently the de facto head of the moderates within the Liberal Party. Are you disappointed that the voices of the moderates have become much weaker in the party in recent years? And why do you think this is so? And how do you see their future? Simon Birmingham: I think the last election in particular, not only sent us a clear message of dissatisfaction from more moderate-aligned, you know Teal-leaning seats. And I don’t just mean the ones that the Teals won, but also seats like Bennelong and Tangney and Boothby that are inner urban and have a Teal tinge to them. It sent us, you know, clear messages from those seats, but simultaneously left the party room less well equipped to respond to those messages because we lost some people who were really about to come into their prime and their own. People like Trent Zimmerman and Tim Wilson, Katie Allen and Dave Sharma, they were becoming much stronger and more authoritative voices in the party room, who I have missed greatly in this term and where I think we would have been better placed having them there. And I just hope that coming into the next election, where obviously some like Tim and Katie are running again, but in other cases where we’ve got some great new candidates in different seats who I think are true custodians of the liberal tradition in the Liberal Party, I hope that we can win those seats back and restore some of that balance in the party room. Michelle Grattan: I just wonder, though, to what extent the Liberal Party has changed fundamentally over the years and really has a new constituency. Peter Dutton, of course, is targeting very strongly the outer suburban vote, the old Howard battlers, I guess you’d say. And that does raise the question, doesn’t it, of how can the party simultaneously appeal to those people but try to win back the people who last time voted Teal? Simon Birmingham: Yeah, I think the next couple of elections are going to be, very clearly, a crucial test of those different theses as to whether voters have permanently changed in terms of the demographics and where they line up, or whether it was a more extreme effect of the last election. We’re clearly seeing global changes and global dissatisfaction with often major parties. We’ve seen huge disruption within the major parties clearly in the US. But you look at, for example, in France, the rise of Macron, who was from neither of the traditional major parties in France, completely broke the two-party model in France and yet, of course, in recent times it’s now Macron’s own party that is breaking and looking like being eliminated. So, we live in an era where there is, potentially much greater change. Nothing is necessarily forever. But I also, again, caution against the catastrophising. I remember shortly before I was elected that former Senator Chris Puplick, wrote a book called Is the Party Over? And of course, that was meant to be the potential prognosis of the death knell for the Liberal Party, and particularly the Liberal Party, as a party of liberalism. And as it turned out, it was far from it. Shortly thereafter, we were to go on and enjoy very long periods in government federally and indeed in Chris’ own state. Michelle Grattan: Well, maybe some would say you could write a book now about whether the era of the major parties is heading in the direction at least of being over, because people do seem to be wanting options other than the major parties, don’t they? Whether it’s the minor players like the Greens or this rise of community candidates, which of course is not confined to the Teals. Do you think we’re going to see more and more crossbenchers in future parliaments? And what does this mean? Will, we see a string of minority governments? Simon Birmingham: I think it’s impossible to, you know, particularly predict into a string-type scenario. Historically, we’ve seen independents are hard to move, but we’ve also never historically seen so many independents and a coordinated independent movement. I think there is a real test there for the Teals and their backers. If, and I hope this isn’t the case, but if they were to win their seats at the next election, let alone if they were to expand upon it, then at some stage I think the pressure really does have to come on as to whether or not they are going to form into a coherent political party and coordinated movement. Because our system is not built for government to be formed reliant upon lots of independents. Even the countries elsewhere around the world where broader coalition governments are common, still rely on having parties of more common ideological disposition and identified consistent policies to be able to go and negotiate the forming of a government. I think we would be poorly served if we find ourselves in the future having a government trying to find its way with lots of independents and needing to somehow negotiate separately with each, rather than having at least a common, consistent, philosophically-based party structure to engage with. Michelle Grattan: I just want to ask you a couple of questions with your Foreign Affairs spokesman hat on. How do you think Australia, the Australian government, should deal with the new Trump administration in the coming months, especially given the threat we face about tariffs being imposed and other quite difficult questions facing the alliance? Simon Birmingham: Michelle, I think it’s a combination of clearly being quite forthright and strategic in the arguments that we mount and ensuring that they’re clear, concise and simple. So, I remember at that dinner with Donald Trump that I referenced before, we did get into a debate about the trade balance between our countries. And I ultimately, you know, reached into some of the documents I had and handed a graph across the table that showed for how long and how significantly the US has had a trade surplus over Australia and passed it across the table saying, Mr. President no, it’s not the case that the US is in any trade deficit with Australia - it is very clear that it’s been a long and sustained period of surplus for the US. And whilst I don’t think trade relations should be about the binary of surplus v deficit, in the end if that’s what’s going to sway his thinking, we’ve got to pitch it in that regard. But we also have to understand the depths and the sentiments of players there. I also recall being in Ottawa for a minilateral meeting of trade ministers, clearly from Canada, but elsewhere from Asia and Europe as well and I was scheduled to go from Ottawa through to Washington DC on my way back to Australia, and Joe Hockey rang me while I was in Ottawa and said, mate, your New Zealand counterpart came here on his way to Ottawa, and he asked to get the same exemptions to the steel and aluminium tariffs that Australia’s got. And Bob Lighthizer, who was Trump’s equivalent of a trade minister went nuts at the New Zealanders and marched them out of his office saying, well, you’re not getting it and Australia never should have either. And Joe said to me, mate, I think it might be best if you have a family emergency and head back to Australia. And so, lo and behold, I took Joe’s wise advice and counsel; made my way straight back to Australia, making apologies to those in D.C, I was meant to see because it was the right advice that, you know, we had ourselves in the position where we wanted the country to be with Trump, with his chief of staff, with the White House and that had secured us the policy outcome that mattered and we didn’t need to do anything that might risk provoking others in the administration who could cause trouble. So, I think it’s critical to ensure that we are, as a country, strategic in how we mount the arguments; to whom we mount the arguments and make sure we’re putting the strongest foot forward at all times. Michelle Grattan: On the Middle East, the Coalition government signed Australia up to the International Criminal Court. In light of the court’s arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister, do you think in retrospect, this was a mistake and a future Coalition government should look at leaving the Court? And in general, do you think that the Coalition has been too one-sided in this conflict in the Middle East? Simon Birmingham: Michelle, I think the International Criminal Court is an interesting example now of the real challenge that exists in terms of global strategic competition. You’ve got a couple of rulings over the last couple of years; one in relation to Putin, that countries like South Africa, you know, clearly have great disregard for; and one in relation to Netanyahu that countries like the US clearly have great disregard for. So, I think it does highlight that extent of strategic competition and a thing that we as a country are going to have to think carefully about, along with many other Western liberal democracies, is how we stand true to our values and in defence of our democratic partners, but also avoid what is often used by China and others against us, which is that we are frequently accused of being judgemental and lecturing. And the analogy of that, or the example of that is as Shadow Foreign Minister, on any given day, in any given week, the media would have lapped up and frequently asked me for comments about what was happening in terms of India’s democracy, or what the risks of the new Indonesian president may be, and all of those very sensitive issues. And in the end, of course, it’s entirely counterproductive for me or for Penny or for anybody in either of our positions to run that type of commentary about how the systems of other governments are operating and what’s happening in those. Because ultimately, what we want is for Australia to be in the strongest possible position of our relationships with those countries and not to necessarily be sitting in judgement of them. But of course, we still need to preserve the space to be clear about our values when it comes to human rights frameworks and the like. So, it’s a very challenged time, a difficult balance. And the situation in the Middle East and the tragedy that has unfolded there has only made that harder. I don’t think in standing strongly beside Israel and clearly against terrorists and the need for them to be defeated and Iran to be held to account, that we have been in any way too one-sided. I do think perhaps the debate has only ever continued to sit in the here and now. And I think it’s important to also be clear that in the long-term, there needs to be an outcome for Palestinians that is just for them that gives security for them and that includes addressing difficult issues where Israel’s policies have been quite counterproductive on things like settlements, for example and that, you know, that asked the right questions I’d have been clear in terms of that view all along as well. Michelle Grattan: So, on the Court, do you think we should not desert the Court, not seek to leave the Court? Simon Birmingham: I think we want to see, as a country, international architecture survive. It’s going through a period of immense strain. The mere fact that the UN can’t put Blue Beret peacekeepers in any new part of the world, because the Security Council will veto everything, and that there is such dysfunction, shows how deep that strain is. But for the time being, dialogue and places for discussion and debate are better than not. And in those circumstances, we’re better off trying to preserve what’s there. But in years to come, we’re going to need to be adaptable and that may mean reconsidering the value of some of these pieces of institutional architecture if they can’t be preserved in a functional way. Michelle Grattan: Just finally, I want to circle back to the Liberal Party. And perhaps the hardest question of all. How can the party attract more quality candidates and especially more women candidates? Simon Birmingham: I think at some stage the party is going to have to look beyond its membership base. We were built as a mass member organisation. In my own state back in the Menzies and Playford eras, you were talking about a party that had 30, 40, 50,000 members at a time when the population of SA was much, much smaller. Now you can well and truly knock a zero off the end of that proposition, even with a much larger population. Now political parties aren’t alone there. The same is true of nearly all membership-based organisations across our society, as people’s behaviours and interests have changed. But it creates a fundamental problem for political parties, because we’re choosing people from a narrower base who are making that choice. And I think there’s much to be said around the wisdom of crowds making decisions about candidates and their merits, and that somehow you know, we need to find a model, whether it is through use of citizens’ juries type approaches; whether it is a mould or model of some type of primary; or things that bring more of the local small business people, the local charitable organisation leaders, the local sporting and multicultural organisation leaders into our pre-selection processes to help us get a diversity of candidate, a diversity of thought and ensure that we are better connected to the community in the future, which our membership used to provide, but which smaller numbers of members detach us from now. I wrote a reform paper for my home division, the South Australian Liberal Party, a year, 18 months ago. I can’t say that it’s gone anywhere. But I hope that it can get dusted off one day, particularly some of those concepts of how we revisit our membership model to ensure that we give the community the say and the engagement that Robert Menzies envisaged us to have when he founded the party. Michelle Grattan: Simon Birmingham, thank you so much for talking with us today and sharing some insights and some nice stories. I’m sure that your colleagues, and indeed your political opponents here in Canberra will be watching your new career but wishing you every success in it as well. That’s all for today’s Conversation Politics podcast. Thank you to my producer, Ben Roper. We’ll be back with another interview soon, but goodbye for now. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Climate Change Authority head Matt Kean says ‘put more solar panels on commercial rooftops’ 24:58

22 weeks ago24:58

24:58

STEVEN MARKHAM Steven Markham/AAP The just-ended COP-29 in Baku, and the election of Donald Trump, have put the global response to climate change in the spotlight. Meanwhile back home, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen this week reported Australia is on track to meet its 2030 target to reduce emissions as part of the Paris Climate Agreement. But the government won’t say whether it will reveal its 2035 target before the election. It points out it is awaiting advice from the Climate Change Authority. The head of that authority, former New South Wales Liberal treasurer Matt Kean, joins the podcast to talk about COP, Australia’s energy transition, and the challenge of preparing that advice on the 2035 target. Kean says COP left him more encouraged than he’d expected: I arrived at COP incredibly pessimistic. It was on the back of Trump’s election victory where he basically called climate change a hoax. He said his energy policy was going to be “drill, baby, drill”. And it was clear that there was going to be an absence of American leadership in the climate discussion over the next four years. So, I arrived with not high hopes. But I left optimistic and positive, and the reason for that is that this is the world’s most important climate conference. It’s the world’s biggest climate conference. It brings together people from all over the globe, be it governments at the national level or sub-national level, businesses, private enterprise, NGOs. And the message that I received from all those actors is, yes, there is a setback, but the effort required and the determination to continue the trajectory that we were on was very, very clear. It’s an opportunity to collaborate and come up with new ways to solve this challenge. I mean, the world coming together in a global effort to limit global warming by 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels is one of the great challenges of our times. No country alone is going to solve it, and my message to your listeners is this: the fight for a cleaner, safer and better planet by tackling dangerous climate change is bigger than one election cycle in one country at one point in time. Australia had hoped to get the nod during COP to host (together with Pacific countries) the 2026 COP but a decision has been deferred until June. Kean describes where things are up to and why it’s an important event not just for Australia’s reputation but also for its economy: I was led to believe that there was a strong indication that other countries might pull out of the race. But clearly that didn’t happen. We arrived in Baku to hear the president of Turkey making a strong and forceful argument as to why Turkey should be the host of that COP. And I think that caught a few people by surprise, to be honest. But […] hopefully, Australia will be chosen as the country that can host this world-class huge event which will bring lots of economic benefits. Over 70,000 people descended on Baku. So, regardless of the importance of bringing people together to collaborate and try and solve this challenge, it is a huge economic boon for the city and the country that hosts it. I mean, I can’t think of many events that could attract 70,000 people to Australian shores. On the Climate Change Authority’s progress report, released this week, Kean highlights a key opportunity for new renewable energy capacity: Take, for example, one of the recommendations around using more business rooftops to meet our energy needs. Australia has the potential for an extra 28GW of solar capacity using the commercial and industrial rooftops of Australia. That’s bigger than the size of the New South Wales energy system alone. [The Australian Energy Market Operator] predicts only 5% of the commercial and industrial customer demand will be met by rooftop solar and batteries and that’s compared to 50% for households. So we’ve got a huge opportunity to install more capacity into the grid, ensure that our system is more reliable and able to manage the exit of these unreliable coal fired power stations without adding a huge cost to consumers. On when Australians will learn about our 2035 targets, and his authority’s advice on them, Kean says Australia will need to submit its targets before next year’s COP, but is coy about when the authority’s advice will be coming: Let me firstly say what matters most is the quality of the target and the strength of the evidence and analysis that underpin it. So we want to give the Australian people confidence that Australia’s next target is ambitious, achievable and in our national interest. As far as we’re aware, all countries intend to submit their next targets before the next climate conference in 2025. We will provide our advice in plenty of time for Australia to submit before then. I’m not going to be rushed by domestic political timetables. I’m an independent voice in this process and as I said, what matters most is the quality of the target and the strength of the evidence and analysis that underpin it. Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.…

Politics with Michelle Grattan

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Politics with Michelle Grattan: Special Minister of State Don Farrell on getting ‘big money’ out of elections 27:01

23 weeks ago27:01