Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: Politics was changed at the last election in a way
Speaker 1: the major parties are still grappling with now. The record
Speaker 1: crossbencher delivered looks set to grow even more. With a
Speaker 1: hung Parliament looking ever more likely in the lead up
Speaker 1: to the next election, Labor is courting the teals, knowing
Speaker 1: the relationship could be crucial to forming government and keeping
Speaker 1: coalition MPs out of inner city seats. Today, chief political
Speaker 1: correspondent for the Saturday paper Karen Mallow on Labour's plan
Speaker 1: and the fight that could derail it. It's Tuesday, September ten.
Speaker 1: So Karen, thank you for joining us. You've been looking
Speaker 1: into the relationship between the major parties and the independents
Speaker 1: who are sitting on the cross bench. How has the
Speaker 1: government treated those independents since they joined parliament?
Speaker 2: It did have a rocky start.
Speaker 3: Independents are threatening to block and stall labor legislation in
Speaker 3: Parliament following Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's decision to cut their
Speaker 3: staff resources. Sixteen Lower House and eighteen senators will have
Speaker 3: personal advisor teams trimmed from four people to one a PM.
Speaker 2: Now, some of that did get returned.
Speaker 4: But look, they've managed while not having the balance of
Speaker 4: power in the House, They've managed to have a constructive relationship.
Speaker 4: It's been in some cases a warm relationship. There's individual
Speaker 4: cabinet ministers who've got on very well with these independents.
Speaker 4: At the same time, you know, Labour's obviously dealing with
Speaker 4: some serious you know, antagonism from of course the Opposition
Speaker 4: and the Greens, and so I guess in some ways,
Speaker 4: you know, there are a lot Labour's a lot nicer
Speaker 4: with the Independence. How would you describe your relationship with
Speaker 4: the ALBERNIESI Labor government.
Speaker 5: I think it's very business like and it's quite productive.
Speaker 6: There's certainly an open door policy in terms of collaborative
Speaker 6: discussion around improving legislation and policy positions.
Speaker 4: So there's been high level, regular meetings with this broad
Speaker 4: new influx of independence, this cross bench in this parliament.
Speaker 1: And the Independence. They have now been in their roles
Speaker 1: for more than two years. So what have they said
Speaker 1: to you about what it's been like for them in
Speaker 1: canber and about what they have managed to achieve in
Speaker 1: that time.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is something that is a core attack
Speaker 4: line now from the opposition leader that what have they achieved?
Speaker 4: Have they achieved anything? Will they tell me that? I
Speaker 4: absolutely have despite not having the balance of power. So
Speaker 4: the big win, the first win was the net zero
Speaker 4: target of forty three percent being a floor not a ceiling.
Speaker 4: That was something that pretty much all of the independs
Speaker 4: will tell you that was a big win.
Speaker 2: Helen Haynes, she can point to the.
Speaker 4: Die Review, which is getting more community consultation over renewable
Speaker 4: energy infrastructure developments. So you know, she tells me that
Speaker 4: the labor has a real blind spot with rural and
Speaker 4: regional areas.
Speaker 5: When I go interrogating legislation closely, that's where I always
Speaker 5: see the gaps and that's what I frequently take to them.
Speaker 4: And so she's assisted that. Manique Ryan would point to
Speaker 4: reducing the Heck's indexation. That's seizing the burden on students.
Speaker 4: So that's something that came from public pressure.
Speaker 7: I've got two amendments which will would make a real
Speaker 7: difference to people's experience of HEX and what one's about
Speaker 7: the timing of indexation now, other's about rolling back some
Speaker 7: of the job ready graduates program. They're both things that
Speaker 7: the governor has acknowledged it needs to do, but it
Speaker 7: said that it has no intention of addressing.
Speaker 2: Right now the House.
Speaker 4: Independents say that the government they don't know how to
Speaker 4: deal still with this record cross bench, they don't know
Speaker 4: how to deal with some of the members. It's difficult
Speaker 4: for them and sometimes they get woken up. And one
Speaker 4: of the examples that a Legras Spender gave me was
Speaker 4: the recent example of the census question.
Speaker 8: Is out there going okay. Labour thought it was fighting
Speaker 8: with a coalition on this and this is why it
Speaker 8: behaves like this, But actually they forgot that it was
Speaker 8: actually fighting the community and it would and also a
Speaker 8: whole bunch of the cross bench work and I let
Speaker 8: it go quietly.
Speaker 1: Either and I think that And you mentioned the Opposition
Speaker 1: has been attacking some of these independents, but some of
Speaker 1: them have also ramped up their attacks on Dutton as well.
Speaker 1: We heard Zali Stuggle recently calling him racist over his
Speaker 1: handling of the Palestinian visa situation. But just as Labor
Speaker 1: may need the tills if there is a hung Parliament,
Speaker 1: surely the Coalition would as well. So what are they
Speaker 1: doing about that?
Speaker 4: Look, obviously the inner City Independence and the Coalition are
Speaker 4: opponents but can I tell you at the same time,
Speaker 4: when we talk about the weekly or parliamentary briefings that
Speaker 4: go on between the Labor government and the cross bench,
Speaker 4: the coalition holds its own fortnightly briefings during parliament with
Speaker 4: the cross bench as well.
Speaker 9: The Prime Minister if he's in a minority government in
Speaker 9: the next term of parliament. It will include the Greens,
Speaker 9: It'll include the Green Teals, it'll include Muslim candidates from
Speaker 9: Western Sydney. It will be a disaster.
Speaker 4: But we're getting this continuing narrative that we're headed towards
Speaker 4: the hung parliament. So lines are being laid down now
Speaker 4: via the opposition leader about how they're Green Teals and
Speaker 4: how they're going to be working with the Labor government
Speaker 4: and minority and it's going to be a disaster for
Speaker 4: the country.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, the big fight that could
Speaker 1: rail Labour's relationship with the Independence Karen the Abenezy government,
Speaker 1: we know it's currently working on a package of electoral reforms.
Speaker 1: Independent MPs. They are worried about that, about what might
Speaker 1: be coming and how they could be affected. So tell
Speaker 1: me how this fight is shaping up.
Speaker 4: One of the main planks of the Independence getting elected
Speaker 4: was integrity and electoral reform and looking at the issues
Speaker 4: of donation spending and Labor has gone with that and
Speaker 4: promised reform, but there's an absence of the Independence the
Speaker 4: cross Bench being involved in the negotiations with the government,
Speaker 4: which is causing the cross bench's major concern. They believe
Speaker 4: it's being set up for a stitch up, a two
Speaker 4: party deal between the Labor government and coalition. So the
Speaker 4: electoral reforms are a major speed bump between the Independence
Speaker 4: and the Labor government.
Speaker 10: The government has a long standing commitment to real time
Speaker 10: disclosure of political donations over one thousand dollars, but this
Speaker 10: hasn't happened because the government has indicated at once opposition
Speaker 10: support on electoral reform. Time is running out to implement
Speaker 10: transparency before the next election. Why won't the government make
Speaker 10: good on its promise and pass this legislation immediately with
Speaker 10: cross bench support in both houses. We need transparency now.
Speaker 4: So what the independents are particularly concerned about is spending
Speaker 4: caps because they want to level playing field. At the
Speaker 4: same time, they were largely funded by the Climate two
Speaker 4: hundred funding vehicle, and that was also from individual donations
Speaker 4: plus some very high investors also putting their money there,
Speaker 4: and the money that was made available for certain candidates
Speaker 4: did actually dwarf some of the major candidates in some electorates,
Speaker 4: and there's a concern they're in the major parties that
Speaker 4: that is going to impact on some of the fights
Speaker 4: going forward.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Greens, because obviously
Speaker 1: there is a situation where they could have the balance
Speaker 1: of power in the Senate. What are their chances.
Speaker 4: Well, separate from chances, I think I would immediately say, well,
Speaker 4: they've got some high ambition for what it could get
Speaker 4: in the House, and they are eyeing off the balance
Speaker 4: of power in the House as well. They currently have
Speaker 4: four MPs in the House, which is their best result ever,
Speaker 4: and they're looking to build on that. They're going hard
Speaker 4: on issues such as housing. They want to be the
Speaker 4: party of mortgage holders, of people who are renting, and
Speaker 4: they're getting some great responses out in the field.
Speaker 2: This election.
Speaker 11: We will be running the biggest campaigns in Green history
Speaker 11: to win lower House seats too. There are at least
Speaker 11: I have new seats across the country where we believe
Speaker 11: we're in with a strong chance.
Speaker 4: Look, I've spoken to Labor strategists who say, well, that's
Speaker 4: absolute bluster. They've said it every single time their polling
Speaker 4: has remained the same. But Labor was elected in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two on a historically low primary vote and that
Speaker 4: hasn't improved for them. So Cosamaris from Redbridge, he's a
Speaker 4: former Labour strategist, he says, well, it's now looking like
Speaker 4: a deeper hung Parliament than even what we were predicting
Speaker 4: earlier in the year. So it wouldn't just be the
Speaker 4: independence the House independence that Labor might have to deal with.
Speaker 4: It still might be the Greens and that will be
Speaker 4: a problem for them. But the Prime Minister would say, well,
Speaker 4: you know, when it comes to the crunch, it will
Speaker 4: tighten up and they're in with a chance. He actually
Speaker 4: thinks that they can actually build on some of the
Speaker 4: seats that they have at the moment. So you know
Speaker 4: that's still talking majority government, but you know that's an
Speaker 4: election that's possibly like eight nine months away.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Karen, both the Coalition and Labor, they'd obviously
Speaker 1: lack to form a majority government in their own right,
Speaker 1: but as you say, that is looking increasingly unlikely. So
Speaker 1: how do you think that that is going to affect
Speaker 1: the messaging around the upcoming election campaign. What are we
Speaker 1: going to start to hear from people like Peter Dutton
Speaker 1: and Anthony are but easy.
Speaker 2: We're starting to hear it now, So things are changing.
Speaker 4: So for the Coalition, they're saying publicly that they're aiming
Speaker 4: for majority government, we're not seeing much of an attempt
Speaker 4: to take back the seats in the inner city that
Speaker 4: they need to. So it does feed in with this
Speaker 4: narrative that Peter Dutton's actually going for a two term
Speaker 4: strategy to win back government. To basically write down Labor,
Speaker 4: Labor is going for majority. Will we keep saying that
Speaker 4: it's going for a majority in its own right. It
Speaker 4: did that last time. It has to, but it will
Speaker 4: have to change the way that it messages the voting population.
Speaker 4: We have to see from all parties re energize sort
Speaker 4: of volunteer base out there on the ground, much like
Speaker 4: how the Independence did for the twenty twenty two election.
Speaker 4: So I think you know, we have they have to
Speaker 4: be face to face more and we'll see a lot
Speaker 4: of bypassing of the traditional media. Anthony Albanezi loves to
Speaker 4: have a chat on commercial radio. I think that will
Speaker 4: continue it seems to like doing that, but whether people
Speaker 4: get challenged in any of these political discourses is another matter.
Speaker 4: So I think we're going to see, you know, boosts
Speaker 4: on the ground fight and it's going to get very interesting.
Speaker 4: Zoe Daniel, the former ABC Foreign correspondent. She says that
Speaker 4: the two party system is a threat to itself and
Speaker 4: it's up to them to be more ambitious and after all,
Speaker 4: they're all fine for everyone's votes.
Speaker 5: I think the two party system is a threat to itself.
Speaker 5: It's up to them to change their behavior. It's up
Speaker 5: to them to show more accountability. It's up to them
Speaker 5: to show more vision for the country. It's up to
Speaker 5: them to be more ambitious. It's up to them to
Speaker 5: stop bickering with each other. It's up to you the
Speaker 5: Liberals to demonstrate what their principles and values are and
Speaker 5: it's up to Labor to follow their principles and values
Speaker 5: without pandering to politics is here. That's all up to them,
Speaker 5: but you know, my role is to try and force
Speaker 5: them to do that.
Speaker 1: Karen, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, the final report of the
Speaker 1: Royal Commission into Defense and Veterans Suicide has been handed
Speaker 1: to the government after a three year inquiry. The commissioner's
Speaker 1: final report attains one hundred and twenty two recommendations, one
Speaker 1: of which is establishing a new body to monitor progress
Speaker 1: on addressing the high rates of suicide among military personnel
Speaker 1: and the Albanesi government is still locked in negotiations with
Speaker 1: the Coalition and Greens over a new environmental protection agency.
Speaker 1: Last week, the Prime Minister offered to weaken the bill,
Speaker 1: removing a role for the EPA in project approvals to
Speaker 1: try and earn the support of the resources industry and
Speaker 1: the coalition, but National's leader David little Proud has stated
Speaker 1: that his party will not support the legislation. I'm Ruby
Speaker 1: Jones seven am. We'll be back tomorrow