Speaker 1: We're listening to what people have to say. We've made
Speaker 1: a mistake in relation to the policy. We apologize for
Speaker 1: that and we've dealt with it.
Speaker 2: We made a mistake. Tough words for any politician, but
Speaker 2: in the heat of an election campaign, they can really hurt.
Speaker 3: More than that.
Speaker 1: This is the white BACKFLI.
Speaker 3: I mean, this was one of your signature policies. If
Speaker 3: you're making this kind of a mistake during an election campaign,
Speaker 3: how can you be trusted as Prime Minister?
Speaker 1: Well, Sarah, I think if you have a look at
Speaker 1: my track record over the last twenty year.
Speaker 2: In a spectacular reversal, Peter Dutton has walked back his
Speaker 2: policy to sack forty one thousand public servants, saying he'll
Speaker 2: now wait for people to quit and that he will
Speaker 2: no longer force those who remain back into the office.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't just raise questions about sincerity, it also
Speaker 2: leaves the opposition with a giant black hole when it
Speaker 2: comes to funding their other election promises. From Schwartz Media,
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM Today. Jason Kotsugus
Speaker 2: on the panic inside the coalition and what it means
Speaker 2: for Peter Dunn's leadership. It's Tuesday, April eight, So, Jason,
Speaker 2: we've just seen the Coalition backflip on a major policy
Speaker 2: promise only a week in to the election campaign, and
Speaker 2: this was around forcing public servants to go back to
Speaker 2: the office. So why do you think ultimately the Coalition
Speaker 2: decided to walk this back.
Speaker 4: Well, I think this policy was killing the Coalition electorally,
Speaker 4: and the polling over the last ten days has showed
Speaker 4: that this is not just very unpopular in Canberra, but
Speaker 4: it's unpopular right across the country as people who work
Speaker 4: from home in the private sector worry that their employers
Speaker 4: will decide that if the federal government is forcing workers
Speaker 4: back to the office, then they will force their own
Speaker 4: workers back to the office too. A lot of people
Speaker 4: have got used to working from home during COVID. They've
Speaker 4: built their working lives around being able to work from home.
Speaker 4: It's proved to be very successful for many families, and
Speaker 4: the idea that Peter Dutton would do something that could
Speaker 4: threaten those working arrangements has really started to affect the
Speaker 4: way people will vote in the upcoming election, and I
Speaker 4: think that's what the Coalition is seeing in their polling,
Speaker 4: and they've decided that they just can't hang on to
Speaker 4: this policy any longer.
Speaker 2: And let's talk more about the second part of this
Speaker 2: cuts to the public sector. So Dutton is saying that
Speaker 2: he does still want forty one thousand public servants to leave,
Speaker 2: but as you said, not through forced redundancies, through natural attrition,
Speaker 2: and are hiring freeze. So is that even possible? Are
Speaker 2: there forty one thousand workers Jason who want to quit?
Speaker 4: Yeah, great question. It's hard to see forty one thousand
Speaker 4: people wanting to quit given that forty one thousand people
Speaker 4: have just been employed or added to the Australian public
Speaker 4: service ranks right across the country. I guess sacking public
Speaker 4: servants has been a key part of Peter Dutton's message
Speaker 4: for the last year and a half. He hasn't just
Speaker 4: said it once, He's said it countless times.
Speaker 1: Well, reverse labors increase of forty one thousand Canbra public
Speaker 1: servants because it will save about seven billion dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I don't think any Australian can say that their lives
Speaker 1: are easier in terms of their interactions with government agencies
Speaker 1: because of thirty six thousand new public servants being employed
Speaker 1: in Canberra.
Speaker 4: And he's never talked about attrition or hiring freezers. It's
Speaker 4: always been sacking public servants. And I think the reason
Speaker 4: he's been saying that is because he thinks it will
Speaker 4: do well with those middle class voters struggling with cost
Speaker 4: of living pain in sort of outer suburban seats around
Speaker 4: the country who have this idea that most public servants
Speaker 4: are just sitting on their bums in camera not doing much.
Speaker 4: But I think since Elon Musk and Donald Trump started
Speaker 4: to literally take a chainsaw to the public service in Washington,
Speaker 4: this is.
Speaker 3: The chainsaw for bureaucracy.
Speaker 4: People have started to feel less certain that this might
Speaker 4: be a good idea. I guess one of the other
Speaker 4: things that Peter Dutton has been doing is saying that
Speaker 4: all of these public servants that he's going to be
Speaker 4: sacking are in Canberra, and Peter Dutton doesn't mind denigrating Canberra.
Speaker 4: I think that's another thing that he thinks will play
Speaker 4: well with the voters in outer suburban seats in the
Speaker 4: bigger cities. But the problem is that most of the
Speaker 4: public servants who have been added to the ranks of
Speaker 4: the public service are not actually based in Canberra. These
Speaker 4: are people who are being employed in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide,
Speaker 4: regional centers like Albury, Wodonga and Woollongong, and these are
Speaker 4: all key electorates that the Coalition needs to win and
Speaker 4: I think it's really studying to hurt him.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned those comparisons to Trump and Musk. Does
Speaker 2: this about face? Does this tell you that perhaps that
Speaker 2: is starting to land with vhotos and perhaps Dutton and
Speaker 2: his team are becoming worried about being compared.
Speaker 4: I think absolutely, because everywhere you look right now there
Speaker 4: are reminders of the havoc that Donald Trump is causing,
Speaker 4: not just here in Australia but around the world. The
Speaker 4: Australian stock market is plunging, Global stock markets are plunging,
Speaker 4: The Australian dollar has dropped below sixty US cents. There's
Speaker 4: all these reminders that Donald Trump is an agent of chaos.
Speaker 4: And every time people think of Donald Trump, perhaps they're
Speaker 4: also thinking of how much Peter Dutton has wanted to
Speaker 4: be like Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Joined with the Prime Minister and on behalf of the coalition.
Speaker 1: I congratulate to the forty fifth President of the United States.
Speaker 4: When Donald Trump was elected, Peter Dutton was very quick
Speaker 4: to say how happy he was about that.
Speaker 1: President Trump is not somebody to be scared of, but
Speaker 1: somebody that we can work very closely with. And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we will do, is to Speaker.
Speaker 4: He's talked about how much he has agreed with many
Speaker 4: of the policies that Donald Trump is implementing, and the
Speaker 4: government has picked up on this. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has
Speaker 4: called Peter Dutton Dogie Dutton. This is Dogie Dutton taking
Speaker 4: his cues, his instructions and his policies straight from the US.
Speaker 4: And I guess this does actually help the Prime Minister.
Speaker 4: As one person said to me, Anthony Albanezi is the
Speaker 4: boring guy off the piss who won't crash the car.
Speaker 4: And I think this helps the Labor Party project Anthony
Speaker 4: Obinezi as a stable alternative to Peter Dutton. He's not
Speaker 4: going to create the kind of chaos that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: is creating and that Peter Dutton might create too if
Speaker 4: he's allowed to follow in Donald Trump's footsteps.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, how many seats does Dutton
Speaker 2: need to win to keep his job?
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Daniel James seven Am tells stories that need
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Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: Pretty unusual to hear Peter Dutton publicly apologize to sound
Speaker 2: so contrite. How do you think that will land with voters?
Speaker 4: I think it's very damaging for Peter Dutton because, as
Speaker 4: you say, it's so rare to hear a politician apologize
Speaker 4: like this admit that they got something completely wrong. And
Speaker 4: I think it does really undermine Peter Dutton's campaign because
Speaker 4: I guess most people will think, well, he's just saying
Speaker 4: that now to try to corterize the damage that his
Speaker 4: policy has been doing to his election campaign. But if
Speaker 4: he was to win the election, he might just turn
Speaker 4: around and decide, well, I'll implement all those things I
Speaker 4: really wanted to implement anyway, and not keep his promise
Speaker 4: to dump these policies. We know Dutton sincerely believes what
Speaker 4: he's been saying. Because he's been saying it for so long,
Speaker 4: to just turn around and quickly try to sort of
Speaker 4: backtrack is probably going to be unconvincing for many voters.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the reasons that a backflip
Speaker 2: like this is so surprising is because the coalition has
Speaker 2: had years to work out what they want to fight
Speaker 2: this election on. So to announce and then retract something
Speaker 2: in the space of a week points to a lack
Speaker 2: of strategy. What does it say to you, Jason, about
Speaker 2: what is actually going on behind the scenes in the
Speaker 2: coalition right now?
Speaker 4: Well, I think they're panicking, that's what's happening behind the scenes,
Speaker 4: that the polling is so bad that not only will
Speaker 4: they not win as many seats as they expected, they
Speaker 4: might not win any seats at all, and we might
Speaker 4: see Anthony Elberenezi returned with a bigger majority than he
Speaker 4: has now. I think that's the sort of things that
Speaker 4: must be going through the minds of coalition strategists right
Speaker 4: now for them to do a backflip as big as
Speaker 4: this one, Because it's not just the symbolism of cutting
Speaker 4: public servants, it's all the money that they were going
Speaker 4: to save by doing that and us to fund other
Speaker 4: policies like the coalitions planned for nuclear energy. So to
Speaker 4: pull this policy out it creates all these follow on
Speaker 4: problems for him because how is he going to pay
Speaker 4: for all these other promises that he's made if he's
Speaker 4: not getting the six billion dollars a year in savings
Speaker 4: that he's promised. And I think a key problem for
Speaker 4: Peter Dutton is that he's raised the expectation among his
Speaker 4: backbench that he really could win this election. And as
Speaker 4: one Liberal MP told me, we've spent all these years
Speaker 4: not really doing any hard policy work and that it's
Speaker 4: really coming back to bite them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. So if Dunne and his team have
Speaker 2: decided that talking about public service cuts and forcing people
Speaker 2: to work from the office are not topics that will
Speaker 2: vote well for them, what would this election be fought on?
Speaker 2: In an ideal world for Dunton if things were going well.
Speaker 4: Well, I think Peter Dutton imagine that he would fight
Speaker 4: this election campaign on all the things that Albanesi has
Speaker 4: failed to deliver, and top of that list is alleviating
Speaker 4: the cost of living pain. The first question that Peter
Speaker 4: Dutton asked of the Prime Minister in this term was
Speaker 4: would Labour's promise to lower power bills by two hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy five dollars? Would that promise be delivered?
Speaker 1: Where Anthony Albanezi promised at the last election that there
Speaker 1: would be a two hundred and seventy five dollars decrease
Speaker 1: in your power bill. Instead there's been a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: increase in your power bill. But how much higher will
Speaker 1: your electricity prices go? Under this prime minister?
Speaker 4: Every question time just about he gets up and asks
Speaker 4: the Prime Minister about this promise on power bills. And
Speaker 4: while Peter Dutton has got a lot of mileage out
Speaker 4: of that, at the same time he hasn't sort of
Speaker 4: backed it up with any real kind of policy development.
Speaker 4: And now that the scrutiny is on Peter Dutton during
Speaker 4: this election campaign, he has to sort of come up
Speaker 4: with his own answers about how he would lower cost
Speaker 4: of living and he doesn't really seem to have the answers.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned, Jason that there was at one point
Speaker 2: this expectation that Dutton might actually be able to win
Speaker 2: this election, and so seeing that potentially evaporating is now
Speaker 2: becoming damaging for him, But I wonder how damaging could
Speaker 2: it be. Will Dutton remain leader if the coalition does lose.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the first thing here is that Coalition
Speaker 4: MPs are talking about who will be leader after the election,
Speaker 4: and I think that suggests firstly, they don't expect Peter
Speaker 4: Dutton to win this election, and the question is becoming, well,
Speaker 4: how many seats does Peter Dutton have to win in
Speaker 4: order to save and hold on to his leadership.
Speaker 2: What's the magic number? Then?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the minimum number of seats he has
Speaker 4: to win is ten. Peter Dutton doesn't have to win
Speaker 4: the election. This was always going to be a two
Speaker 4: term strategy, but I think he does need to improve
Speaker 4: the coalition's position, and just winning back five seats I
Speaker 4: don't think that's enough. That shows that Peter Dutton is
Speaker 4: pretty unpopular. But I think if he manages to win
Speaker 4: ten seats then that does give him a reasonably solid
Speaker 4: floor from which to launch the campaign for the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty eight election. But the way the campaign's going right now,
Speaker 4: he might not win five seats at all. He might
Speaker 4: lose a seat or two and go backwards. And if
Speaker 4: that happens then I think Peter Dutton's leadership really will
Speaker 4: be on life support. One thing that Peter Dutton has
Speaker 4: going for him is that there's no real alternative yet
Speaker 4: as to who would lead the coalition. There are people
Speaker 4: like Susan Lee, the deputy leader, Dan Tee, and the
Speaker 4: Immigration spokesman. They're often sort of talked about as possible
Speaker 4: alternative leaders. The defense spokesperson Andrew Hasty from Western Australia,
Speaker 4: I think, is another one that could be seen as
Speaker 4: a potential leader, But right now real obvious alternative. And
Speaker 4: I think if Peter Dutton does perform very badly in
Speaker 4: this election campaign, he'll probably still hang onto the leadership
Speaker 4: for another year. It won't happen immediately.
Speaker 2: Well, Jason, thank you so much for your time. It's
Speaker 2: been great to chat.
Speaker 4: Thanks Rby, always enjoy talking with you.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said
Speaker 2: he doesn't think our economy will fall into a recession
Speaker 2: in the face of Trump's tariffs. The Treasury's own modeling
Speaker 2: of the expected impacts forecast the economy will be affected
Speaker 2: more modestly than other nations, while still expecting slower growth. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the Australian dollar has fallen to its lowest value under
Speaker 2: the US dollar since before the pandemic, dropping from sixty
Speaker 2: four US since last Wednesday to just under sixty cents,
Speaker 2: and a New South Wales's Upper House inquiry into the
Speaker 2: fake caravan terrorism plot has revealed that a senior New
Speaker 2: South Wales police officer was asked to sign a non
Speaker 2: disclosure agreement after being informed by the AFP that the
Speaker 2: plot was fake. The inquiry is investigating whether the state
Speaker 2: Parliament was misled before rushing through hate speech and anti
Speaker 2: protest laws. The laws were passed on February twenty, with
Speaker 2: the terrorism plot not publicly discredited until February twenty one.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.