Speaker 1: From Sports Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Australian politics is changing, and it's changing fast in ways.
Speaker 1: It seems the Labor Party and the Coalition really haven't
Speaker 1: come to terms with and as the electric splinters, it's
Speaker 1: harder than ever for governments to last more than three years.
Speaker 1: Just months from an election where a minority government looks likely,
Speaker 1: scare campaigns about unholy alliances have begun. I signed that
Speaker 1: the two major parties are rather by the prospect of
Speaker 1: what's to come. Today. Author of Minority report The New
Speaker 1: Shape of Australian Politics, George metlagenis on the new battle
Speaker 1: lines between the city and the suburbs and how the
Speaker 1: results of the Voice referendum are still reverberating. It's Friday,
Speaker 1: December sixth George. We may just be a few months
Speaker 1: out from the next federal election. So who's going to win.
Speaker 1: Who's going to win?
Speaker 2: I think the people of Australia might win if they
Speaker 2: hang the parliament again.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think we've got about three plausible scenarios and the
Speaker 2: most likely one at the moment minority Labor government. We've
Speaker 2: Labor finishing a few seats ahead of the coalition and
Speaker 2: been able to form minority government and a stable one
Speaker 2: at that. The sort of second best scenario is a
Speaker 2: bit of a dead heat on the floor if it
Speaker 2: is going to be a hung parliament, with the possibility
Speaker 2: that Peter and Data might be in a chance of
Speaker 2: former minit a government. But he sort of come at
Speaker 2: this term of parliament the wrong way around. He's sort
Speaker 2: of been yelling at the Teals, yelling at the Greens,
Speaker 2: and that's the cross bench that will determine the next
Speaker 2: government in the event of a hung parliament. And the
Speaker 2: other scenario, which I probably would rule out now, but
Speaker 2: it maybe even six months ago I wouldn't have ruled
Speaker 2: is that Labor holds its majority, even increases it slightly
Speaker 2: because the Coalition are too far from power. But we're
Speaker 2: in a cost of living crisis. We're in a global
Speaker 2: inflation shock, and your history tells you that inflation is
Speaker 2: a government killer. It doesn't matter how newer old the
Speaker 2: government is. We're already seen at the state and territory
Speaker 2: level far out of the last eight elections at the
Speaker 2: state and territory level of Senate change of government, and
Speaker 2: that's since twenty twenty two, so Whilst Albernese's government is
Speaker 2: one of those governments that came to power from opposition,
Speaker 2: that doesn't change the fact that we're in an anti
Speaker 2: incumbent cycle.
Speaker 1: So what's driving the this shift, this diminishing in the
Speaker 1: primary votes of both the major Parties's what's happening here.
Speaker 2: So what we've had since twenty ten, and it really
Speaker 2: begins with a thudded in twenty ten, we've had a
Speaker 2: net swing away from both parties, So I swing away
Speaker 2: from the geopoly in two ten to thirteen to sixteen,
Speaker 2: two ninety two five elections. Row never happened before. It
Speaker 2: didn't even happen in the depression.
Speaker 1: So that's a trend. That's a trend. So that's your trend.
Speaker 2: Right Labour loses it from its left flank, the Coalition's
Speaker 2: lost at it from its center, and so the two
Speaker 2: of them have at a one piece of the puddle,
Speaker 2: which is the progressive the other piece of the puzzle,
Speaker 2: which now is coming off both sides as well as
Speaker 2: that Palmer Hansen grouping, which is around nine or ten
Speaker 2: percent of the last federal election. And this is the
Speaker 2: problem for both sides because it's coming off both their piles.
Speaker 2: It's not the same story that we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1: And one of the coalition's key attack lines has been
Speaker 1: that we can't risk having a minority Labor government, that
Speaker 1: the Tills and the Greens would end up with too
Speaker 1: much power over the country. It will be a disaster.
Speaker 3: If you think the Albanezi government is bad, now, wait
Speaker 3: for it to be a minority government with the Greens,
Speaker 3: the Green Tials and Muslim independence.
Speaker 1: What have you made of those scare campaigns.
Speaker 2: I find them a little desperate now because the electorate
Speaker 2: at the last election broke to thirds. Labor Party's primary
Speaker 2: was just under thirty three percent, the coalition is just
Speaker 2: under thirty six and a bit over thirty percent, highest
Speaker 2: highest in the post war period past. Outside of a
Speaker 2: depression for minor parties in independence, then none of the
Speaker 2: above vote. I think when you begin with a base
Speaker 2: that's above thirty percent for independence and minor parties, to
Speaker 2: tell that third of the Australian electorate that they made
Speaker 2: a mistake the last time is probably not the best,
Speaker 2: probably not the best way to go about engaging with
Speaker 2: the diverse and fractured electorate. So I don't think it's
Speaker 2: that bright. If you roll back to the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two campaign when that sort of till where it started
Speaker 2: to form, sort of very late in the term, when
Speaker 2: the tills were looming as a as a as a
Speaker 2: new force. Scott Morrisson said, don't.
Speaker 3: There is a choice, and it's a choice between where
Speaker 3: you want the Liberal and Nationals to run the country
Speaker 3: and continue manager or you.
Speaker 4: Want the Labor Party supported by the Greens and a
Speaker 4: cavalcade of independence where you are inviting chaos and weakness.
Speaker 1: A strong economy, and.
Speaker 2: The electorate said sure we will, We'll do it anyway.
Speaker 2: Neither of the major party leaders would be making their
Speaker 2: best case for reelection if they're blaming the electorate for
Speaker 2: the very low primary votes on both sides at the
Speaker 2: last election. There was a primary vote swing against Labor
Speaker 2: and a primary vote swing against the coalition. Coalition losing
Speaker 2: a landslide Labor just creep over the line. You've got
Speaker 2: a very vulnerable government on arrival.
Speaker 1: Because the Alberdezer government as we see there only has
Speaker 1: two seats.
Speaker 2: Two seats to play with. I mean they picked up
Speaker 2: Aston in the outer east of Melbourne at a by
Speaker 2: election in twenty twenty three, and then promptly lost the
Speaker 2: cutos from that because Peter Dutton then decides to go
Speaker 2: hard on the referendum and before you know, the electritory
Speaker 2: polarized around that issue.
Speaker 1: And you've been looking into that, What do the Voice
Speaker 1: results tell us about how the electorate has changed? What
Speaker 1: did you find?
Speaker 2: So this is a bit of a surprise because I
Speaker 2: think the nation was a bit stunned. Now you'd recall
Speaker 2: all the way to about August the national vote was
Speaker 2: tracking just above fifty percent, but the composition of that
Speaker 2: bare majority was interesting. So Aboriginal tor Austrade Islanders are
Speaker 2: in the seventies and the eighties very very high support
Speaker 2: for the Voice. The next strongest group were non English
Speaker 2: speakers so New Australia, so New Australia and First Australians
Speaker 2: were essentially the grand alliance for the Voice. Where that
Speaker 2: majority lasts up until that final quarter of the of
Speaker 2: the referendum when the disinformation campaign really hit art. In
Speaker 2: micrant communities, there's been shrinking in the progressive zones of
Speaker 2: the major capitals, our inner cities in Melbourne and Sydney,
Speaker 2: been the case in Canberra for a while now, also
Speaker 2: in parts of Brisbane are actually getting whiter through gentrification.
Speaker 2: All the Urban cross Bench, all of it, every single
Speaker 2: one of them except for Fowler, So Fowler is a
Speaker 2: direly independent in Western Sydney. All the others, so the Teales,
Speaker 2: the Greens and Andrew Wilkie, all of them vote yes
Speaker 2: for the Voice, all of them. And the problem for
Speaker 2: Peter Dutton looking for a majority Liberal National Coalition government
Speaker 2: at the next election is that he's pretty much taken
Speaker 2: those ten seats off the board. That's obviously not where
Speaker 2: he's looking to get back to. Powry's looking at the
Speaker 2: outer suburbs, where the further he got out of the CBD,
Speaker 2: the lower the yes vote.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break was Julia Gillard's minority government.
Speaker 1: Tell us about what's ahead. So, George, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about the twenty ten election, which was the
Speaker 1: last time Australia had a minority government. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me about how the government worked in terms of implementing
Speaker 1: its agenda and whether it was effective.
Speaker 2: If you were to say minority government in Australia, what
Speaker 2: would it look like if it would function, it would
Speaker 2: be a government that had a little bit of the
Speaker 2: rest of the country. That didn't belong to it. So
Speaker 2: you had a couple of regional mp sociding with a
Speaker 2: Labor government.
Speaker 3: Labor linked to the magic number of seventy six with
Speaker 3: a backing of just two of the three Country independents,
Speaker 3: rob Oke Shot and Tony Winter say they went Julia
Speaker 3: Gillard's way for stability and for country Australia.
Speaker 2: And a Labor government has effectively through its Green sole
Speaker 2: Green member in the Lower House, Adam Bant, was in
Speaker 2: his first term for the electorate of Melbourne, and the
Speaker 2: Greens had the balanced parents set in their own right
Speaker 2: for the first and only time at a federal election.
Speaker 2: That parliament is stable minority government. But it's a stable
Speaker 2: parliament and of course was able to legislate. It was
Speaker 2: able to legislate a price on carbon.
Speaker 4: The science is clear our planet is warming, that warming
Speaker 4: is caused by carbon pollution, by human activity, and we
Speaker 4: need to cut carbon pollution.
Speaker 2: It was able to introduce the NDAs.
Speaker 4: The reason we're so determined to deliver a National Disability
Speaker 4: Insurance scheme is we want to make a difference for
Speaker 4: the lives of four hundred and ten thousand Australians who
Speaker 4: have serious disabilities.
Speaker 2: So that parliament worked, and it was one of those
Speaker 2: hung parliaments where there's a handful of cross benches, only
Speaker 2: five of them. There were sixteen at the last election.
Speaker 2: We didn't get a hung parliament. But I don't think
Speaker 2: the parliament the way it's functioned in this term has
Speaker 2: behaved like a parliament that has had a certain force
Speaker 2: projected onto it, which is a progressive force. The parliament
Speaker 2: has behaved like a geopoly. You still hear Peter Dutton's voice,
Speaker 2: even though the coalition numbers on the floor of the
Speaker 2: House of Representatives are the smallest as a share of
Speaker 2: the parliament ever for the modern Liberal Party. The Liberal
Speaker 2: Party itself is the minority party in the coalition. So
Speaker 2: two thirds of Austrainers live in the capital cities, so
Speaker 2: why is he the dominant voice the last year and
Speaker 2: a half. So in a way, the system is still
Speaker 2: behaving like a geopoly. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: that is happening is weirdly Labour has a narrow majority,
Speaker 2: doesn't control the Senate and the tials, which are the
Speaker 2: party or the grouping that can drag the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: back to the center, because it now holds seats that
Speaker 2: were atritional liberal seats.
Speaker 1: And the capitals.
Speaker 2: They don't really have the balance of power.
Speaker 1: Yet, right, So the twenty ten Hung Parliament had a
Speaker 1: cross bench that was mostly a handful of rural seats.
Speaker 1: A future minority government will have a broad cross bench
Speaker 1: made up considerably of tials inner city electorates. So how
Speaker 1: different is the hypothetical twenty twenty five Hung parliament going
Speaker 1: to be from twenty ten in practice?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: One of the things I've been thinking about is what
Speaker 2: does a Hung parliament look like in terms of who
Speaker 2: you hear every day in a political debate. So in
Speaker 2: twenty ten you heard Gillard and Abbott, but especially Abbot.
Speaker 2: The next tongue parliament with a much deeper cross bench
Speaker 2: that's more send it in capital cities. So you've got
Speaker 2: sixteen and of that sixteen, a good dozen in the
Speaker 2: capital cities. That cross bench cooperating, pushing against, arguing with
Speaker 2: a labor government. You're going to mark the success of
Speaker 2: that minority government terms of what it gets through. Are
Speaker 2: you going to hear the opposition leader at that point?
Speaker 2: And I think this is almost the unknowable, but part
Speaker 2: of me thinks that another election with the Liberals too
Speaker 2: far away from majority government. You know, that's the electric
Speaker 2: saying it twice to them, which is we've kicked her
Speaker 2: out of the cities for a reason. They obviously think
Speaker 2: that there's another majority forming somewhere. They think there's a
Speaker 2: realignment forming in the outer suburbs, which means that they
Speaker 2: don't need to worry about the inner city. But they
Speaker 2: did have a post election report which Arthur Sinad Ernest
Speaker 2: and Joan Hume co wrote which warned them that there's
Speaker 2: no credible path back to power from the regions.
Speaker 1: Alione.
Speaker 2: Now, the worst case scenario, even if the lower House
Speaker 2: looks relatively functional, is that there's incentives after the election,
Speaker 2: both in the lower House and especially in the Senate,
Speaker 2: for major party members to term themselves in independence. Five
Speaker 2: senators since the last election changed starts already.
Speaker 1: Is that all? And it's a mess up there anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there'll be a few of them will get the
Speaker 2: temptation to go silo.
Speaker 1: So, George, it sounds like you're pretty convinced that the
Speaker 1: two party system is over. So if that's the case,
Speaker 1: what do you think about that personally? How do you
Speaker 1: think it's going to serve voters as we move forward? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, whilst I'm probably not as terrified of a hung
Speaker 2: Parliament this time around, I think in the long run
Speaker 2: do you need to have a contest around the Senate
Speaker 2: in Australia, so you need two very very strong major parties.
Speaker 2: So I don't think in the long run this is
Speaker 2: a good thing. It's good to give them a lookick
Speaker 2: up the backside. I mean maybe if Australia gets used
Speaker 2: to the idea of minority government and that functions, the
Speaker 2: opposition is muted in this period because Australians don't want
Speaker 2: to hear from the side that lost. I'd still like
Speaker 2: to see a system where the majors can agree on
Speaker 2: the problems we want to solve them, then have an
Speaker 2: argument about the best way to solve them. At the moment,
Speaker 2: we're in this kind of half world where a clue
Speaker 2: has some big problems out there, but one side is
Speaker 2: in denial on some and the other side is sort
Speaker 2: of two week to lead on them. And that's not
Speaker 2: where you want to be as a country.
Speaker 1: George, thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. Thank you, Daniel.
Speaker 1: George Medalagenis's courtly essay Minority Report is out now It's
Speaker 1: a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. Also in
Speaker 1: the news today, New South Wales Premier Chris Means has
Speaker 1: called an ikak referral against him outrageous and not supported
Speaker 1: by the facts. Newsbroke on Wednesday that a parliamentary committee
Speaker 1: looking into government plans to develop Rosehill Racecourse into twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand homes would be referred to the State corruption
Speaker 1: watchdog when the report is released on Friday. The inquiry
Speaker 1: will allege that Men's friendship with racecourse owner Steve McMahon
Speaker 1: is a conflict of interest and bitcoin is at an
Speaker 1: all time high worth US one hundred thousand dollars per bitcoin.
Speaker 1: That's around one hundred and fifty five thousand Australian dollars
Speaker 1: for a single bitcoin. Since election day, the value of
Speaker 1: bitcoin has grown forty five percent. Meanwhile, the value of
Speaker 1: the Australian dollar has slumped in the face of slower
Speaker 1: GDP growth than expected. Seven Am is a daily show
Speaker 1: from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. It's made by
Speaker 1: Atticus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Chris Dangate, Zolten, Vetcho, Travis Evans,
Speaker 1: Sarah mcveee, Ruby Jones, and myself Daniel James. We'll be
Speaker 1: back on Monday, m