Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven Am. The
Speaker 1: Coalition is again in crisis. The latest News poll puts
Speaker 1: their primary vote at twenty seven percent. It's worst on record,
Speaker 1: and with one front bencher sacked over immigration comments and
Speaker 1: others threatening to quit of a climate policy, the party
Speaker 1: seems more divided than ever. Today Press Gallery journalist Karen
Speaker 1: Middleton on the ideological battle lines tearing the party apart.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, September twenty two.
Speaker 2: So Karen, let's go back to the first trouble in
Speaker 2: this latest saga for the coalition. I think a good
Speaker 2: starting point is the sacking of Tenter Nabujeba Price. So
Speaker 2: tell me what happened there.
Speaker 3: Well, we remember there were protests in capital cities about
Speaker 3: the levels of immigration, and the flyers that were put
Speaker 3: out ahead of those protests at which some neo Nazis
Speaker 3: spoke were complaining in particular about the levels of Indian immigration.
Speaker 3: Senator Senter Nampajimpur Price did an interview on ABC Afternoon
Speaker 3: briefing the ABC twenty four program.
Speaker 4: Senator, welcome to the program, Thanks for having me. It's
Speaker 4: National Flag Day and you've written a piece.
Speaker 5: You say Australia should criminalize the destruction of the desecration
Speaker 5: of the national flag.
Speaker 4: Why do you think she was on the program?
Speaker 3: Ostensibly because in Parliament that day to mark National Flag Day,
Speaker 3: she had got up wrapped herself in the Australian Flag chambers.
Speaker 5: For the benefit of all Australians in this country. Yes,
Speaker 5: snark all you like, it's revolting. You don't love this
Speaker 5: country the way I do, certainly not like most Australians do.
Speaker 3: So, and she got some questions about the immigration protests
Speaker 3: and her views, and she appeared to endorse the sentiment
Speaker 3: that there were too many Indian migrants and all said
Speaker 3: she believed the Labor government was bringing Indian migrants into
Speaker 3: Australia to boost their vote as we've seen you know,
Speaker 3: mean you yourself mentioned that there is a concern with
Speaker 3: the Indian community, and only because there's been large numbers
Speaker 3: and we can see that reflected in the way that
Speaker 3: the community votes for Labor at the same time, so
Speaker 3: if they're going to see a reflection, and it sort
Speaker 3: of exploded in a political sense for the coalition. The
Speaker 3: leader Susan Lee immediately went out to try and repair
Speaker 3: relations with the Indian Australian community.
Speaker 6: May I take this opportunity as leader of the Liberal
Speaker 6: Party to apologize to all Indian Australians and indeed others
Speaker 6: who were hurt and distressed by the comments that were made,
Speaker 6: Comments that I said at the time should not have
Speaker 6: been made.
Speaker 3: So she was trying to fix that up, and the
Speaker 3: suggestion was made that Jacinto Nampajepreprice should apologize, and in
Speaker 3: the end a few days later, when she was asked
Speaker 3: about it, she still didn't apologize, and in fact she
Speaker 3: double down.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, the issue that's of great concern, which you know
Speaker 5: I won't be silenced on, is the issue of mass
Speaker 5: migration in our country.
Speaker 3: And when asked if Susan Lee as leader had her support,
Speaker 3: she declined to give it. Repeatedly, do you have confidence
Speaker 3: in her leadership?
Speaker 5: Look again, those matters are for our party room. Those
Speaker 5: matters are for our party room. My focus is to
Speaker 5: go forward and to ensure that.
Speaker 3: We're Susan Lee had to do something about it in
Speaker 3: terms of her position, and she was removed from the front.
Speaker 2: Bench and all of this led straight into the boiling
Speaker 2: over of another struggle inside the coalition Net zero. So
Speaker 2: tell me about that and why the Coalition at this
Speaker 2: moment in time is still seeming unable to settle on
Speaker 2: a climate policy.
Speaker 3: Well, because there's still a constituency in the Coalition on
Speaker 3: the right, in the Liberal Party and within the Nationals
Speaker 3: that doesn't believe in strong action against climate change. I
Speaker 3: think some of them still don't believe in climate change
Speaker 3: at all, although some of them who have expressed denial
Speaker 3: type views about climate change in the past are now
Speaker 3: saying they do accept human induced climate change, and I
Speaker 3: think have dated Little Proud, the Nationals leader, as well,
Speaker 3: but he still is opposed to the policy to reach
Speaker 3: net zero emissions by twenty fifty.
Speaker 7: The Coalition voted against legislating net zero target by twenty
Speaker 7: fifty and we voted against the twenty thirty target, and
Speaker 7: now obviously we're going through a process of review of
Speaker 7: the net zero position both parties.
Speaker 3: So this decade's long conflict inside the coalition about whether
Speaker 3: to take action on climate change about energy transition continues,
Speaker 3: and in some ways it's also a bit of a
Speaker 3: proxy war for the factional infighting, particularly in the New
Speaker 3: South Wales Liberals. Alex Hawk is from New South Wales.
Speaker 3: He's a prominent figure, as I said, in that center faction.
Speaker 3: He was Scott Morrison's sort of key lieutenant when Morrison
Speaker 3: was Prime Minister. And the Right is backed and led
Speaker 3: effectively in the background by figures like Tony Abbott and
Speaker 3: to a degree Peter Kredlin who's now a Sky News
Speaker 3: commentator and Tony Abbot's former chief of staff. But they
Speaker 3: still wield influence and they are seeking to drive the
Speaker 3: coalition's policy in a more conservative direction, particularly on this issue.
Speaker 4: So they don't seem to accept.
Speaker 3: That it was one of the key reasons the Coalition
Speaker 3: lost the election, and they are continuing to prosecute the case,
Speaker 3: and that means it also becomes a vehicle to destabilize
Speaker 3: Susan Lee's leadership with those factional tensions underneath.
Speaker 1: Leta, as you touched on, you don't agree with the
Speaker 1: twenty thirty five targets were set via the government, but
Speaker 1: what do you think that target should be?
Speaker 6: We don't believe in setting targets at all from opposition
Speaker 6: or from government, thanks ever.
Speaker 3: But stumbling over her words on climate change and emissions reduction,
Speaker 3: as Susan Lee did on Friday when she suggested the
Speaker 3: Coalition didn't support setting targets even in government is not
Speaker 3: going to help her. Sorry, guys just want to say
Speaker 3: she's got to add to.
Speaker 4: She had to come back out and clean that up immediately.
Speaker 3: Now that's just a gift to her political opponents, whether
Speaker 3: it's Anthony Albanezi or the people inside her own party.
Speaker 4: What I meant to.
Speaker 6: Say was that I don't support the targets that the
Speaker 6: government sets while we're in opposition.
Speaker 4: So I misspoke.
Speaker 2: And when you say they continue to prosecute the case,
Speaker 2: tell me more about what this group on the right
Speaker 2: of the Liberal Party and the Nationals.
Speaker 4: So people like Barnaby Joyce Andrew Hasty.
Speaker 2: Tell me what we're hearing from them about net zero
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 3: Well, and Juicy inter NAMPAJMP Prices is in that group
Speaker 3: as well. She holds the same view that they shouldn't
Speaker 3: be pursuing a net zero emissions by twenty fifty policy.
Speaker 3: Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack, both former Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaker 3: There's former leaders of the Nationals, have come out very
Speaker 3: strongly saying they believe the coalition should oppose that policy firmly.
Speaker 3: They are arguing that their rural constituents are distressed and
Speaker 3: alarmed at the way the energy transition is playing out
Speaker 3: in regional areas. Andrew Hasty is from Western Australia. He's
Speaker 3: also a Conservative now to Shadow Home Affairs Minister formally
Speaker 3: Shadow of Defense and with a background and the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: He says his constituents are opposed to the levels of
Speaker 3: climate action that are being played out under federal government policy,
Speaker 3: and he's against the net zero policy too. And he
Speaker 3: gave a provocative radio interview a week or so ago,
Speaker 3: he said, and it was a little mercurial his answer, where.
Speaker 4: Would he be if they did that? He'd be out
Speaker 4: of a job.
Speaker 8: If Susan Lee, though, supports net zero by twenty fifty,
Speaker 8: where does that leave you? That leaves me without a job?
Speaker 8: Go on, elaborate on that. That would be it for you.
Speaker 4: I've mailed, I've nailed my colors to the mask. Gary like,
Speaker 4: if I go out with a tide in two and
Speaker 4: a half years, that's great, you know.
Speaker 3: So he seemed to actually be saying in the moment,
Speaker 3: if voters vote me out because I'm opposing net zero
Speaker 3: and this level of climate action and the renewables transition,
Speaker 3: so be it, but it was interpreted as him saying
Speaker 3: I'll quit the front bench, and he hasn't corrected that.
Speaker 3: He's almost sort of surfed that wave since, and so
Speaker 3: that is now seen as a sort of a different
Speaker 3: kind of direct challenge to Susan Lee and to the
Speaker 3: suggestion that they may continue to adopt a net zero policy.
Speaker 3: So you've got Susan Lee trying to hold the show
Speaker 3: together and commissioning this review being undertaken by her front
Speaker 3: bench of Dante and it's not a happy ship at
Speaker 3: the moment.
Speaker 2: And that review, as you say, is underweight still. But
Speaker 2: are there any signs as a result of all of
Speaker 2: this that nuclear power could be back on the table
Speaker 2: as coalition policy?
Speaker 4: Well, this is the pointy end of this whole debay,
Speaker 4: isn't it. Really.
Speaker 3: We've heard David Little from the Nationals in the last
Speaker 3: few days re endorsing nuclear power, I.
Speaker 7: Believe passionately in it region. Australia is more than just
Speaker 7: a place littered with transmission lines, solar panels and wind turbines.
Speaker 3: Pointing to the argument that the more we use artificial intelligence,
Speaker 3: the more data centers we're going to need to manage
Speaker 3: that the greater the power need and the only way
Speaker 3: to supply that power is with nuclear power. I think
Speaker 3: the problem with that argument is the data centers are
Speaker 3: going to be needed a lot earlier, and the extra
Speaker 3: power is going to need a lot earlier, and then
Speaker 3: nuclear power stations could be built. So there's a timeline
Speaker 3: flaw in the argument. But he is indeed pressing that point.
Speaker 3: So that tells you there are still some key figures
Speaker 3: in the Coalition that are willing to reignite that nuclear debate,
Speaker 3: so that's not a dead issue by any stretch.
Speaker 1: Coming up, how the global far right is influencing Australian politics, Karen.
Speaker 1: When Susan Lee took over as leader after that catastrophic
Speaker 1: election for the Coalition, her task was to bring the
Speaker 1: party back to the center, to recapture the mainstream that
Speaker 1: the party seem to have lost. But as we're seeing
Speaker 1: these tussles play out over immigration over climate, does this
Speaker 1: show that she is failing at that task?
Speaker 3: Well, I think to be fair Susan Lee, she's only
Speaker 3: been in the job for four months. We don't have
Speaker 3: another election for almost three years, so she's got a
Speaker 3: way to go yet. But it's certainly difficult and It
Speaker 3: tells you that these issues, these old slawny issues, these
Speaker 3: ideologically divisive issues like climate change, like immigration, continue to
Speaker 3: play out in our politics now. They come to the
Speaker 3: fore particularly strongly when people are under economic stress, and
Speaker 3: Australians still are. The cost of living problems still exist,
Speaker 3: and in some corners of Australia people want to blame
Speaker 3: levels of migration because they say that's what's putting pressure
Speaker 3: on infrastructure and services and pushing prices up. And so
Speaker 3: that issue is problematic for the coalition and for Susan Lee,
Speaker 3: and so is this climate issue. She sat just into
Speaker 3: nampajmper price. She immediately reshuffled her front bench. She elevated
Speaker 3: Claire Chandel from Tasmania and our Claire Chandler is.
Speaker 4: Also a Conservative.
Speaker 3: She's replaced a conservative with a Conservative and a woman
Speaker 3: with a woman. But she's made some enemies in her
Speaker 3: whole front bench, shaping the likes of Jane Hume, who
Speaker 3: was a prominent front bencher and shadow Finance Minister who's
Speaker 3: much more moderate in the previous coalition shadow ministry under
Speaker 3: Peter Dutton. She lost her front bench position and there
Speaker 3: are others in the party unhappy. So she's got a
Speaker 3: task to pull them together and to manage that. But
Speaker 3: if these things continue to play out, it will be difficult,
Speaker 3: and with the polls as low as they are, you know,
Speaker 3: something will have to give and improve. The fact that
Speaker 3: she has Alex Hawk sort of at her elbow is
Speaker 3: also angering a number of people, particularly in the New
Speaker 3: South Wales liberal conservative wing, and so there's this sort
Speaker 3: of proxy.
Speaker 4: War going on underneath.
Speaker 3: She needs him for her factional protection, but he's also
Speaker 3: potentially a liability in that factional sense.
Speaker 2: And karent to what extent do you think that this
Speaker 2: ideological struggle within the coalition is being influenced by what's
Speaker 2: happening to the right wing of politics overseas, Because obviously
Speaker 2: you've got this populist authoritarian ESQ government in Trump and
Speaker 2: the MAGA movement in the US, but also in other
Speaker 2: places in the UK, the far right Reform Party has
Speaker 2: been gaining popularity. So how much notice do you think
Speaker 2: that certain people within the coalition are taking of these
Speaker 2: global trends.
Speaker 3: A lot of notice, and this is a very interesting influence.
Speaker 3: We are seeing the rise of leaders on the what
Speaker 3: you might call the far right. I mean, as you
Speaker 3: mentioned in the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage, his party seems
Speaker 3: to be on the ascendant, But the incumbents in a
Speaker 3: couple of other countries are from the center left or
Speaker 3: the left, you know, Keir Starmer in the United Kingdom,
Speaker 3: Mark Carney in Canada, like minded or ideological allies of
Speaker 3: Anthony Albanesi, the Prime minister here.
Speaker 4: So there's this ascendancy of the right.
Speaker 3: But if you look back to our election campaign, Donald
Speaker 3: Trump was elected in November. He was inaugurated in January,
Speaker 3: our election campaign began soon after, and our election was
Speaker 3: in May. And the way the Trump arrival played out
Speaker 3: during that campaign was that it seemed to advantage Anthony Albanesi,
Speaker 3: who was critical of Trump's policies, all the kinds of
Speaker 3: policies that Donald Trump was espousing. So being sort of
Speaker 3: against Donald Trump is seen to have had a political
Speaker 3: positive domestically for Anthony Alberanisi and his government. So the
Speaker 3: coalitions looking abroad seeing these parties and these leaders powerful
Speaker 3: and on the ascendante, but domestically endorsement of those ideas
Speaker 3: did not play well.
Speaker 4: So it's a hard it's a hard thing for them.
Speaker 3: To wrestle with how best to present themselves to voters
Speaker 3: at the next election in a way that they might
Speaker 3: actually defeat the current government now in its second term.
Speaker 2: So a big task I had then for Susan Lee.
Speaker 2: How do you think she's going to approach it?
Speaker 4: Haha?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean to pull the party together. The first
Speaker 3: thing you really got to do is you've got to
Speaker 3: get that poll rating up. I mean it was in
Speaker 3: the last News poll it was down to twenty seven percent.
Speaker 4: That's diabolically low.
Speaker 3: In order to do that, she needs to find issues
Speaker 3: on which she can differentiate from the government and prosecute
Speaker 3: a strong case. Now, the government's emissions reduction targets for
Speaker 3: twenty thirty five are a good example. She's choosing to
Speaker 3: prosecute a case on those. At the same time, she's
Speaker 3: got people in her party who are pulling her in
Speaker 3: opposite directions on that very issue. So it's a huge
Speaker 3: challenge for her to unify her party. And the whole
Speaker 3: way that Peter Dutton managed to unify his party was
Speaker 3: to not allow any dissent to say this is my way.
Speaker 3: I'm a strong leader. So Susan Lee can't really replicate that.
Speaker 3: It didn't work. But in order to try and resolve
Speaker 3: these things. You know she's going to face a struggle
Speaker 3: to hold the party together and be a genuine alternative
Speaker 3: in the lead up to.
Speaker 4: The next election.
Speaker 2: Karen, thank you so much, Viatain, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Ruby.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, twenty five Republican lawmakers in
Speaker 1: the United States have warned world leaders they'll face punitive
Speaker 1: actions if they recognize Palestinian statehood. Prime Minister Anthony Alberinezi
Speaker 1: arrived in New York on Sunday morning along with other
Speaker 1: world leaders for the UN General Assembly, where multiple countries
Speaker 1: tend to formally recognize a Palestinian state. In a letter
Speaker 1: addressed to Anthony Alberaneesi as well as the leaders of Canada,
Speaker 1: at France, and the UK, the Republicans write, this is
Speaker 1: a reckless policy that undermines prospects for peace and the
Speaker 1: families of hostages held in Gaza have staged another protest,
Speaker 1: accusing Prime Minister Benjamin net Nyaho of endangering their loved
Speaker 1: ones with Israel's attacks on Gaza City. It comes as
Speaker 1: Hermas released images of the hostages, also warning that Israel
Speaker 1: is putting their lives at risk and accusing Prime Minister
Speaker 1: net Nyaho of refusing to negotiate a cease fire. Of
Speaker 1: the forty seven hostages remaining in Gaza, about twenty are
Speaker 1: thought to still be alive.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 1: This is seven am. See you tomorrow,