Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Bill Shorton has wanted to be the Prime minister since
Speaker 1: he was a teenager. Yesterday he finally gave up that ambition,
Speaker 1: announcing his resignation from politics. Shorten spent almost two decades
Speaker 1: in Parliament, rising to be Opposition leader and contesting two
Speaker 1: elections but never winning. As an architect of the National
Speaker 1: Disability Insurance Scheme, his legacy is significant, but his political
Speaker 1: failures have shaped the country in enduring ways too. Today
Speaker 1: Schwartz Media's editor in chief Eric Jensen on how Bill
Speaker 1: Shorton's career has changed Australia. It's Friday, September.
Speaker 2: Six, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: I've decided not to seek a seventh term in parliament.
Speaker 1: So Eric, as we talk Bill Shorton, former labor leader
Speaker 1: and ex union boss. He's just announced that he's leading politics.
Speaker 1: He'll retire early next year before the election. What do
Speaker 1: you think is behind this decision?
Speaker 4: I think one of the defining aspects of Bill Shorton
Speaker 4: is the fact that since he was a teenager he
Speaker 4: has been walking up to people and telling them he
Speaker 4: was going to be Prime Minister of Australia. He was
Speaker 4: telling his teachers, he was telling his classmates, and he
Speaker 4: believed it to be inevitable. The realization that that is
Speaker 4: not true and that it is never going to happen
Speaker 4: must be an absolutely shattering one.
Speaker 3: None of this would have been possible without the tremendous love, patience,
Speaker 3: support from Chloe, Rupert, Georgette and Clementine.
Speaker 4: On top of that, Shorten's talked in the past about
Speaker 4: the selfishness of politics and what politics causes you to
Speaker 4: ask your families to do. I'm sure that's a factor
Speaker 4: in this as well.
Speaker 3: The sacrifices they've made. Chloe has been a tower of
Speaker 3: love and strength, and I think she's shown more courage
Speaker 3: than I dreamed would exist.
Speaker 4: And he's going to an important job. He's going to
Speaker 4: be vice chancellor of the University of Canberra. I suspect
Speaker 4: he'll make probably a pretty substantial contribution to tertiary education.
Speaker 3: Education is the modern means of taking someone from disadvantage
Speaker 3: to advantage in a way that no other method can,
Speaker 3: and universities have a critical role to play.
Speaker 4: It is a chance for him to make another meaningful
Speaker 4: contribution to life. And for all the things you can
Speaker 4: say about Shorten, he is genuine in his desire to
Speaker 4: give service, to do things for the country, and I
Speaker 4: guess maybe it's a sad but he's realized that there's
Speaker 4: not much more he can do in politics because it's
Speaker 4: not going to go the way he wants.
Speaker 1: And of course Anthony Albanezi took over from Shorten after
Speaker 1: he failed to become Prime minister in twenty nineteen. What
Speaker 1: is their relationship like and to what extent do you
Speaker 1: think that any tension there might have played into this decision.
Speaker 4: There's no tenderness in that relationship. There from different sides
Speaker 4: of the party. They each had to go at leading
Speaker 4: the party. Shorten didn't get to be prime minister. I
Speaker 4: mean they have a working relationship, but he will I
Speaker 4: suspect not being regular contact with Anthony Albanezi once he's
Speaker 4: no longer in cabinet. But I think if Bill Shorton
Speaker 4: could have rolled Anthony Albanezi and been Prime minister, he
Speaker 4: would be thrilled.
Speaker 1: Okay, and Eric, you spent quite a lot of time
Speaker 1: with Bill Shorten in twenty nineteen while you were writing
Speaker 1: your quarterly essay on that election campaign. What did you
Speaker 1: learn about who he is?
Speaker 4: The surprising thing about Bill Shorton is his insecurity. You know,
Speaker 4: he's someone who famously his brother is taller than him
Speaker 4: and better at sport, and you know, he's always felt
Speaker 4: second to that. He is not an especially confident person,
Speaker 4: which is a curious thing in politics, and actually think
Speaker 4: it's a very good thing in politics. When you're not
Speaker 4: a confident person, you lead by consensus. And so a
Speaker 4: lot of what Shorten has done in politics has been
Speaker 4: being in rooms where he listens to other people and
Speaker 4: then tries to find an effective way through. He's also
Speaker 4: someone who is extremely effective as a politician. He's just
Speaker 4: not especially good at getting people to like him. And
Speaker 4: one of the sadnesses of Shorten is he desperately wants
Speaker 4: people to like him.
Speaker 1: Did you like him?
Speaker 4: I liked him because he was insecure, and I think
Speaker 4: him being insecure as the reason most voters wouldn't like him.
Speaker 4: He's quite good at talking to people. He's good at
Speaker 4: genuine connections. He is terrible at translating that into anything
Speaker 4: bigger than himself in the sort of shallowness of politics.
Speaker 4: That is probably a difficulty. But he's also gone through
Speaker 4: periods of time where he was hugely liked. Beaconsfield is
Speaker 4: probably the moment at which you know he became a
Speaker 4: national figure.
Speaker 3: Union leader Bill Shorten has lived this rescue each and
Speaker 3: every minute.
Speaker 2: He says, all those who made it happen deserve a.
Speaker 3: Medal art thinking. You don't realize how close you get
Speaker 3: to these things. And I probably I was probably quite
Speaker 3: affected by it. I'm really really happy. I'm happy for
Speaker 3: the families. I'm happy for Todd and brand.
Speaker 4: He was a Union representative there on the news every
Speaker 4: night talking about these men who were trapped in those
Speaker 4: mine shafts. The Daily Telegraph at the time were running
Speaker 4: front pages saying Bill Shorten for Prime Minister when he
Speaker 4: actually could be prime minister. There are running pages that
Speaker 4: said quite the opposite. But he I think every time
Speaker 4: he confronts a problem, he genuinely tries to solve it,
Speaker 4: and that's why I think makes him likable.
Speaker 1: And that is perhaps reflected most in his work on
Speaker 1: the National Disability Insurance Scheme and its creation is seen
Speaker 1: as one of his biggest political achievements. He is, of
Speaker 1: course right now leading a major overhaul of that scheme.
Speaker 1: So how do you think that we should think about
Speaker 1: his role in relation to the NDAs and the impact
Speaker 1: that he's had there.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the NDIS will be the great
Speaker 4: policy of our generation, probably in terms of its impact
Speaker 4: on thousands of people's of lives. It's our version of
Speaker 4: medicare being introduced. It has allowed thousands of people who
Speaker 4: live with disability to live in their own homes, live
Speaker 4: with appropriate support, live with the care that they need,
Speaker 4: live fuller lives, and they are otherwise going to be
Speaker 4: allowed to lead. The reforms that Shortness pushing through now
Speaker 4: are obviously controversial because they're largely about cutting my money
Speaker 4: out of the scheme. But I think in the fullness
Speaker 4: of time, people will look at the NDIS and think
Speaker 4: that is one of the Labor Party's great contributions to
Speaker 4: the country.
Speaker 1: And do you think it will be Shortens legacy.
Speaker 4: Shorten and Gillard, I think will be remembered as the
Speaker 4: people who did something that no one else thought was
Speaker 4: worthwhile or possible. And you know, for anyone who knows
Speaker 4: anyone on the NDIAS, it is a huge and transformative
Speaker 4: thing and it should be Shortens legacy. But actually his
Speaker 4: unrealized ambitions and how they've changed our politics, that's probably
Speaker 4: what's going to define.
Speaker 5: Him coming up after the break Bill shortens ambition and
Speaker 5: its consequences, for.
Speaker 1: Better or worse. I think that the defining public image
Speaker 1: of Bill Shorten is him standing on the podium in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. He's wearing a red tie, His wife Chloe
Speaker 1: is next to him in that red sheath dress, and
Speaker 1: he was a man clearly expecting to become prime minister,
Speaker 1: but instead conceding defeat for a second time. You were
Speaker 1: there that night, Can you tell me about that moment?
Speaker 3: This has been a top campaign, toxic at times.
Speaker 4: I was there at the weird little hotel off the
Speaker 4: airport where they were holding this, and I don't think
Speaker 4: I've ever been in a sadder room.
Speaker 3: I know that you're all hurting, and I am too.
Speaker 4: There was this expectation that Shorten would win. At the
Speaker 4: beginning of the evening, the room was full of people
Speaker 4: who thought that they were going to be celebrating another
Speaker 4: labor prime minister. And by the time he actually got
Speaker 4: out to concede, only a third of the people who
Speaker 4: were there at the beginning was still there.
Speaker 3: While there are still millions of votes to count and
Speaker 3: important seats yet to be finalized, it is obvious the
Speaker 3: label will not be able to form the next government.
Speaker 4: Everyone just looked as if they couldn't comprehend that the
Speaker 4: country had decided that Scott Morrison, this shockingly insubstantial person,
Speaker 4: was going to be Prime Minister and Bill short and
Speaker 4: a man with an actual ambitious reform agenda, was not.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that he lost that election?
Speaker 4: Firstly because people didn't like him. That is an insurmountable
Speaker 4: problem in politics. He is not someone people fel draw
Speaker 4: on too. Secondly, he was putting forward some very ambitious
Speaker 4: tax reform and I think really good policy. To be honest,
Speaker 4: he was going to fund a series of major initiatives
Speaker 4: by cutting back negative gearing in capital gains discounts and
Speaker 4: by taxing frankin credits. Those should not be controversial policies.
Speaker 4: Those are sensible reforms that would help to make the
Speaker 4: country just a little bit fairer. But he was fundamentally
Speaker 4: unable to convince people that those things were good. And
Speaker 4: one of the problems for him was he believed because
Speaker 4: those things were so obviously the right thing to do,
Speaker 4: that people would just agree with them. So he was
Speaker 4: not worried about the complexity of that reform agenda because
Speaker 4: he thought if this is right, people will just get it.
Speaker 4: And what he learned was that being correct is not
Speaker 4: the same as being in a position to win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you think about it shortens political legacy.
Speaker 1: It does seem to be tied to this idea of
Speaker 1: what could have been the prime minister that he wanted
Speaker 1: to be but never became, and the tax reforms that
Speaker 1: he wanted to introduce but couldn't. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, I think we would be a very very
Speaker 4: different country if Bill Shorten had won the twenty nineteen election.
Speaker 4: I remember bumping into one of his advisers in one
Speaker 4: of the COVID lockdowns on at the walks that you
Speaker 4: were allowed to take around the block at the time,
Speaker 4: and he made the point. And I think it's right
Speaker 4: that had Shortened been in office through the pandemic, these
Speaker 4: things that happened, like childcare relief and the lifting of
Speaker 4: the rates of welfare payments, that those would not have
Speaker 4: been temporary measures. That a shortened government would have used
Speaker 4: the opportunity, the political opportunity of the pandemic to help
Speaker 4: reshape the country and to do these things that we
Speaker 4: all agreed were good, not just for a short period
Speaker 4: of time but forever, and you. Had he won that election,
Speaker 4: we wouldn't have had the ludicrous embarrassment of the Morrison years,
Speaker 4: and I think we would have actually genuinely invested in
Speaker 4: a better country.
Speaker 1: Do you think that will shortens time in politics? His
Speaker 1: seventeen years has changed the way that the Labour Party
Speaker 1: operates significantly, and I suppose to extend on from that
Speaker 1: the kind of country that we live in.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I think the paradox of Shorten is that in
Speaker 4: attempting to bring complexity to politics, he has created the
Speaker 4: most simple politics you could imagine. There is no ambition
Speaker 4: anywhere in any party for serious reform because people look
Speaker 4: at the twenty nineteen election, they look at Bill Shorton
Speaker 4: and think the lesson to draw from that is done
Speaker 4: try to change anything. And you know, it's a tragedy
Speaker 4: for the country that our major parties think the way
Speaker 4: to win is to promise nothing. And people inside Labor
Speaker 4: think that Shorton lost that election because he was promising
Speaker 4: too much. He lost it because he was selling it poorly.
Speaker 4: But the result of that has been to make our
Speaker 4: politics less serious, less substantial, and sadly less meaningful.
Speaker 1: Eric, thank you so much. For Viata, Thank you Verby.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, the Governor of the Reserve Bank,
Speaker 1: Michelle Bullock, has said its premature to be thinking about
Speaker 1: rate cuts. In a major speech yesterday, Ms Bullock pointed
Speaker 1: to the rising cost of construction and higher rents as
Speaker 1: key drivers of inplation. Her speech comes after the Treasurer
Speaker 1: Jim Chalmers called out the Reserve Bank's successive interest rate
Speaker 1: hikes for smashing the economy. The Reserve Bank has raised
Speaker 1: interest rates thirteen times since May twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 1: the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, says he plans to
Speaker 1: make tech companies unlock encrypted chats when necessary for national
Speaker 1: security investigations. Encrypted platforms are increasingly being used by bad
Speaker 1: actors to hide their communications. Miss Burgess said the move
Speaker 1: would not amount to mass surveillance, but wants the corporation
Speaker 1: of big tech and will compel them to do so
Speaker 1: if they don't voluntarily comply. Seven Am is a daily
Speaker 1: show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. Our hosts
Speaker 1: are Me Ruby Jones and Daniel James. We're produced by
Speaker 1: Shane Anderson, Zoltanfecho and Zaya Artungrel. Our technical producer is
Speaker 1: Atticus Basto. We're edited by Chris dmgate and Sarah mcphe.
Speaker 1: Eric Jensen is our editor in chief. Our mixer is
Speaker 1: Travis Evans. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and
Speaker 1: Josh Hogan of Envelope AUDEO. Thanks for listening, See you
Speaker 1: next week.