Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. For
Speaker 1: the first time in history, almost one in five Australians
Speaker 1: support One Nation. Their surgeon popularity comes as the Liberal
Speaker 1: Party bleeds support from both ends of its base as
Speaker 1: it tears itself a part of a climate and immigration.
Speaker 1: So is this just a protest or the start of
Speaker 1: a permanent shift on the right of Australian politics Today,
Speaker 1: Director of Strategy and Analytics at Redbridge cost samrus on
Speaker 1: why One Nation is soaring and what it means for
Speaker 1: the country.
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, November nineteen.
Speaker 1: So, as Susan Lee likes to say, the Coalition didn't
Speaker 1: just lose the last election, they were quote smashed.
Speaker 3: Totally smashed, as the Liberal Party presented to the Australian
Speaker 3: people was comprehensively rejected.
Speaker 1: So tell me what that meant exactly what proportion of
Speaker 1: people actually voted for the coalition and who were they?
Speaker 4: Okay, So the first thing we need to look at
Speaker 4: is the number of seats they won in our large
Speaker 4: capital cities. So it's about nine out of about ninety
Speaker 4: that are urban electorates in this country. Two of them
Speaker 4: are in Melbourne, three of them in Sydney and the
Speaker 4: rest are in Brisbane. They've been completely pushed out of Adelaide, Perth,
Speaker 4: They've never had a held a seat in Hobarts. That's
Speaker 4: really doesn't count in this conversation, but there is a
Speaker 4: life prospect that come next election they'll lose their footing
Speaker 4: in both Melbourne and Sydney. And these are two cities
Speaker 4: which of course have got massive population growth occurring, massive
Speaker 4: enrollment occurring. So that's one level of smashing, so to speak.
Speaker 4: The next one is, of course, what happened to them
Speaker 4: amongst Generation Z, so that is Australians between the ages
Speaker 4: of eighteen and twenty eight. They received about fifteen to
Speaker 4: twenty percent of the vote amongst this generation. If we
Speaker 4: remove regional and provincial Australia from that, amongst this generation
Speaker 4: it drops down to the low teens and right now
Speaker 4: as we speak, their polling numbers are at ten percent
Speaker 4: for generations. So it's a structural clubs. So whether it's
Speaker 4: diverse Australians, whether it's younger Australians, even millennials, the oldest
Speaker 4: is forty four this year. Even they are bad for
Speaker 4: the Coalition, they're not becoming more conservative as the year's
Speaker 4: roll on every metric that we look at, except for
Speaker 4: baby boomers and those who own their homes outright, they
Speaker 4: are doing badly.
Speaker 2: And their decision to scrap net zero.
Speaker 1: How does that square with what your research shows about
Speaker 1: what the liberal base wants.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, the liberal base that they have still sitting
Speaker 4: in their column are probably okay with this narrative when
Speaker 4: that is they basically abandon that zero and basically don't
Speaker 4: pursue an aggressive posture when it comes to climate change.
Speaker 4: The problem is that that is almost your entry ticket
Speaker 4: to talk into younger Australians. When we speak to a
Speaker 4: lot of Australians. When we say okay, so do you
Speaker 4: think our transition to where your RGE is going to
Speaker 4: result in cheaper energy prices? Most Australians will tell us no,
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I think right now my literricity
Speaker 4: bills are going up. And then we ask some of
Speaker 4: the next question, So does that mean that the country
Speaker 4: needs to slow down? No, I say. In other words,
Speaker 4: I the consumer understand there are problems with the transition.
Speaker 4: Governments have not moved fast enough and things are more
Speaker 4: expensive now, But that does not give you an excuse
Speaker 4: to not take action on climate. And this is where
Speaker 4: I think the coalitions misreading the data, where they don't
Speaker 4: understand that most Australians actually are quite complex human beings. Right.
Speaker 4: They will have all sorts of contradictory views about policy areas,
Speaker 4: but in the end they still have a view that
Speaker 4: climate as a problem needs to be tackled.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the people who aren't voting for the coalition, so.
Speaker 2: People in cities, young people.
Speaker 1: But to take a broader view, just how bad is
Speaker 1: it for the Liberal.
Speaker 2: Party right now? How low is their polling?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have them at about twenty percent if we
Speaker 4: take out the National Party. Most of that twenty percent
Speaker 4: is inflated by the Queensland and OLMP, So their numbers
Speaker 4: are in the teens in the southern states of New
Speaker 4: Soopwhales and Victoria and Adelaide and Perth. And we haven't
Speaker 4: seen the bottom yet. And they're losing their right flank
Speaker 4: to one Nation, and they're losing whatever is left of
Speaker 4: their moderate vote to the Labor Party or the till
Speaker 4: Independence and they're getting smashed from both sides. They're a
Speaker 4: very very serious predicatment at the moment.
Speaker 1: Cause you mentioned one Nation, their popularity is surging while
Speaker 1: the coalition goes down. So tell me, just yea, how
Speaker 1: popular is one nation at the moment?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so one nation is growing at the expense of
Speaker 4: the coalition. So from the August of thirty first, when
Speaker 4: we had those anti immigration rallies take place, a lot
Speaker 4: of us who have started this space predicted that what
Speaker 4: will happen is that the right flank of the Coalition
Speaker 4: will splinter.
Speaker 1: Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hasty has resigned from the
Speaker 1: Liberal frontbench, declaring he can no longer remain silent on
Speaker 1: the issue of immigration the movement.
Speaker 4: When you elevate issues like this, if immigration is an
Speaker 4: issue of salience to a voter, that vote will vite
Speaker 4: for the genuine real deal before they vote for someone
Speaker 4: who's trying to balance the books to speak and not
Speaker 4: actually offend everyone. So the element of the coalition vote
Speaker 4: that is anti immigration has gone to one nation.
Speaker 1: What have I been warning Australians about for nearly three decades,
Speaker 1: the high immigration coming to this country.
Speaker 2: It has.
Speaker 4: That's one side of the corn. The other side of
Speaker 4: the corn, of course, is the other growth it's occurring
Speaker 4: for one nation is again still coalition voters not animated
Speaker 4: by immigration, but by a sense that the major party
Speaker 4: they used to support is just not up to it.
Speaker 4: They've given up, so they're going they're just voting for
Speaker 4: One Nation now because basically they think the Liberal Party
Speaker 4: in particular is just not up to the job and
Speaker 4: they've lost hope. And so we've seen this surge of
Speaker 4: one oation up to about eighteen percent nationally, and it's
Speaker 4: largely made up of Gen X and young baby boomers
Speaker 4: living in our regions and out of suburban areas.
Speaker 2: And eighteen percent, that's a high figure for one Nation.
Speaker 2: Can you talk to me a bit about.
Speaker 1: How that fits in with the party's popularity over time?
Speaker 1: What are the drivers of success for a party like
Speaker 1: One Nation.
Speaker 4: We haven't seen these sort of numbers before. One Nation
Speaker 4: has done well historically in some electrical cycles, but what
Speaker 4: we've always seen is that number will dissipate as we
Speaker 4: are close to an election. What we've never seen before
Speaker 4: is a one nation vote this high paired up with
Speaker 4: an historically low coalition vote. This is the big difference.
Speaker 4: We are seeing similar pattern to what we are witnessing
Speaker 4: in the UK, where reform is gobbling up. Basically the
Speaker 4: Conservative vote. So I wouldn't necessarily rule out that we
Speaker 4: are actually living for a transformative period where there is
Speaker 4: a possibility that the Little Party doesn't bounce back, That
Speaker 4: we are looking at a transition period where politics in
Speaker 4: this country is going to look very drastically different. In
Speaker 4: twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Eight, coming up, what happens when the fringe gobbles up
Speaker 1: the center. So you're describing what sounds like a bit
Speaker 1: of a death spiral for the Liberal Party at the moment.
Speaker 1: Do you foresee some sort of coalition with one nation
Speaker 1: in the future.
Speaker 4: I could see that. Yes, Yes, I wouldn't rule that out,
Speaker 4: but that will be problematic because the coalition with one
Speaker 4: nation means you are not going to come across as
Speaker 4: appealing to urban Australians, urban diverse Australians, and that coalition
Speaker 4: will make it very hard for them to win enough
Speaker 4: seats in the big cities to actually get close to
Speaker 4: seventy five seats as a coalition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because Australian elections, they're sort of they're fought and
Speaker 1: won in the middle here. So if one nation is
Speaker 1: pulling the Liberal and National parties to the right, where
Speaker 1: do those kind of center rite voters up.
Speaker 4: That's why we're there is probably now a live conversation
Speaker 4: around what do those two independents do? Do they form
Speaker 4: some sort of qui as a political movement? I mean,
Speaker 4: it already exists. Many of them were re elected, All
Speaker 4: but one were re elected. Whereas researchers are having a
Speaker 4: discussion as to whether we put senerta po cop in
Speaker 4: the list of leaders to rate popularity, which we probably
Speaker 4: will in the next next sample. So yeah, I probably
Speaker 4: don't have the answer to what that looks like. But
Speaker 4: it's hard to see those urban professional classes in Sydney,
Speaker 4: Melbourne and Brisbane and Perthin and Adelaide vote for a
Speaker 4: coalition that has one nation in it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask what all of this means for labor,
Speaker 1: because on the one hand, a low polling for the
Speaker 1: coalition is obviously good for labor, But on the other
Speaker 1: do you think they are worried both about what this
Speaker 1: might mean for their primary vote in the future and also,
Speaker 1: you know, worried about a one nation resurgence.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't necessarily be worried about the one nation resurgence
Speaker 4: because they're Metra collige now it is made up of
Speaker 4: diverse Australians in our large cities, young professionals in our
Speaker 4: lard cities they've called the market when it comes to
Speaker 4: provincial city electrics, which are also probably many versions of
Speaker 4: Sydney in Melbourne. So really they have to watch their
Speaker 4: left flank, which is the Greens. Then where times do
Speaker 4: record very high numbers of Green support amongst Gen Z
Speaker 4: that supersede and overwhelm the Labor vote amongst that generation.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we don't, but sometimes we do. So that's a
Speaker 4: thing that I think Labor needs to be really careful with.
Speaker 4: Green's at the moment are struggling to get cut through
Speaker 4: and so on. But it wouldn't rule out that younger
Speaker 4: Australians just you know, wake up one morning and go,
Speaker 4: you know what, this major party that we're voting for,
Speaker 4: we probably won't do that. There's a caveat to that
Speaker 4: that if one nation at that time comes across as
Speaker 4: a serious threat electoral threat, progressive voters will park their
Speaker 4: vote on the one party that think that can stop them.
Speaker 4: So there is that risticity that I'm talking about where
Speaker 4: you could see a situation where Labors vote just balloons
Speaker 4: just so they can stop one nation. Because we saw
Speaker 4: a bit of that. There was a by election in
Speaker 4: Wales recently in the UK where former labor voters voted
Speaker 4: for the Welsh National Party, which is a social democratic
Speaker 4: party in that country, to stop reform.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned reform in the UK earlier. To what
Speaker 2: extent do you think that this.
Speaker 1: Kind of realignment of the right in Australia mirrors what
Speaker 1: happened there.
Speaker 4: It's very similar trends. So the one thing, the one
Speaker 4: thing that we can say looks very similar is one
Speaker 4: nation cannibalizing the Conservative vote, and that's exactly what's happened
Speaker 4: in the UK with reform cannibalizing the Conservative vote. The
Speaker 4: undercurrents driving that are very similar, despondency when it comes
Speaker 4: to party establishment, frustration that the world is unraveling. The
Speaker 4: one thing we know about the types of voters that
Speaker 4: left the Liberal Party and now planning the vote one nation,
Speaker 4: they're in their fifties and sixties. They've got massive mortgages
Speaker 4: and the occupations that generally they work with their hands
Speaker 4: or stand on their feet. So if you're sitting with
Speaker 4: a massive mortgage in you're fifty five, and you've got
Speaker 4: probably ten years of prime working age left in, you
Speaker 4: and you're on a massive mortgage, you're thinking to yourself,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to retire sixty five. That obviously creates
Speaker 4: a lot of despondency and frustration and anger, and these
Speaker 4: former liberal voters are clearly now protesting.
Speaker 1: And to what extent do you think that political parties
Speaker 1: I suppose here were talking specifically about the Liberals and
Speaker 1: the Nationals really have themselves to blame here for not
Speaker 1: offering people like that a better solution to the issues
Speaker 1: they face.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I mean they have been preoccupied with cultural wars
Speaker 4: now for a good decade. The last time the Liberal
Speaker 4: party actually took a package of economic reform to the
Speaker 4: public was on how It's gst well over two decades ago.
Speaker 4: It's been a long time since the liberal parties are
Speaker 4: actually spoken to their base about what their plan is
Speaker 4: to address their concerns about the economy and their concerns
Speaker 4: that they're no longer as prosperous as their parents. You know,
Speaker 4: they've been talking about that zero Recently, they're going to
Speaker 4: talk about immigration, but the elephant in the room is
Speaker 4: the economy.
Speaker 2: And labor faces the same challenge obviously.
Speaker 4: Yeah, from the left side, right. So if they do
Speaker 4: not address housing, and they do not address intergenerational inequality,
Speaker 4: and they seem to be treading order. I will not
Speaker 4: rule out the Greens winning seats back off them in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty eight in significant number.
Speaker 2: What Cause. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, Jess Wilson is the new leader
Speaker 1: of the Victorian Liberal Party after Austin Brad Batton. Thatton
Speaker 1: was in the job for less than a year after
Speaker 1: replacing John Pisuto when he lost a defamation case against Moirademing.
Speaker 1: Since then, Baton has struggled to unify the fractured party.
Speaker 1: Jess Wilson is a former advisor to Federal Treasurer Josh Bridenberg,
Speaker 1: a first term MP, and now the first woman to
Speaker 1: lead the party in the state's history.
Speaker 2: She says her priorities are.
Speaker 1: Getting the budget back on track, ending the crime crisis,
Speaker 1: healthcare and housing, and an international stabilization force will provide
Speaker 1: security in Gaza after the UN Security Council approved a
Speaker 1: US plan. The plan also outlines a possible path to
Speaker 1: a Palestinian state. AMAS has rejected the resolution and Israel
Speaker 1: opposes the plan for independent statehood for Palestinians.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.