Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Anthony Alberzi won the first leader's debate of the election
Speaker 1: campaign last night, but it was a tight contest, with
Speaker 1: both leaders well prepared and polished as they faced undecided
Speaker 1: voters in Western Sydney, exactly the kind of battleground both
Speaker 1: sides will need to win the Form government.
Speaker 2: Thanks to the hard work of Australians, including the people
Speaker 2: in this room, Inflation is doubt to two point four percent,
Speaker 2: wages are up.
Speaker 1: Anthony Alberzi spoke of the country rallying in spite of
Speaker 1: difficult global conditions. For Peter Dutton, it was about painting
Speaker 1: a dire picture of economic pain and blaming Alberanzi for it.
Speaker 3: In forty years, there has not been a higher spending
Speaker 3: government than your government.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Well, that's not true, except for the one that you
Speaker 2: were a part of.
Speaker 1: And today Special correspondent for the Saturday Paper, Jason Gottus
Speaker 1: on the biggest moments of the first debate and what
Speaker 1: it tells us about the next stage of the campaign.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, April nine. Jason, thanks for joining us. Who
Speaker 1: had the most to lose from last night's debate.
Speaker 4: Daniel, I think no question Peter Dutton, given the horrible
Speaker 4: start he's had to this election campaign, not just the
Speaker 4: first ten days of the campaign, but the four weeks
Speaker 4: leading up to Anthony Albanesi calling the election have not
Speaker 4: gone Peter Dutton's way and so he had a lot
Speaker 4: at stake tonight.
Speaker 1: There have been reports that Anthony Alberezi has been preparing
Speaker 1: for the debate by training with Dan Andrews.
Speaker 4: Did it show if having the better zingers was a
Speaker 4: measure of the training that Anthony Albaneze did with Dan Andrews,
Speaker 4: then I think it did show for well.
Speaker 2: The only gas policy that the Coalition have is the
Speaker 2: gas lighting of the Australian public. He disagrees with all.
Speaker 4: Of the because Anthony Albanesi did have some better cut
Speaker 4: through lines than did Peter Dutton.
Speaker 1: I noticed that Dutton called Albanzi dishonest a number of
Speaker 1: times throughout the debate.
Speaker 3: It's designed to scare people, and I think it's dishonest
Speaker 3: from a man who wants to well be Anthony with respect.
Speaker 1: That's a very dishonest proposition. You could so we know
Speaker 1: there'd be a whole team of people nailing these lines
Speaker 1: of attack behind the scenes. So what did you make
Speaker 1: of that choice, Jason to use that line.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's exactly the sort of thing we
Speaker 4: would expect Peter Dutton to say to Anthony Albanesi, and
Speaker 4: the sort of thing that the PM would say back
Speaker 4: to Peter Dutton. This is I think standard fair in
Speaker 4: political debates that both leaders are going to call the
Speaker 4: other dishonest or imply that they're a liar in some way.
Speaker 4: That's just what we expect, that standard debate trash talking.
Speaker 1: If you like. Is it a case that that's Dutton's
Speaker 1: best line of defense is attack?
Speaker 4: Well, I think he does have to try to undermine
Speaker 4: the Prime Minister any way he can, and attacking his
Speaker 4: honesties integrity is probably the easiest way to do that.
Speaker 4: But I do think it's also worth saying that I
Speaker 4: thought this debate was pretty respectful both leaders. They are
Speaker 4: used to dealing with each other. They have quite a
Speaker 4: good relationship across the table in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 4: There's not a lot of ill feeling between these two people,
Speaker 4: and I think that showed tonight too. Yes, Peter Dutton
Speaker 4: called Albin Easy dishonest a number of times, but I
Speaker 4: think that's within the bounds of political debate, and it
Speaker 4: wasn't as though as though Pedda Dutt as being disrespectful
Speaker 4: to the PM or unjustly accusing him of lying. I
Speaker 4: thought all of the low that Peter Dutton used were
Speaker 4: pretty fair.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into some of the policy. Then, what
Speaker 1: did the debate tell you about where both leaders want
Speaker 1: to fight this election?
Speaker 4: Well, I think for the Prime Minister very much Medicare.
Speaker 4: He kept trying to bring the debate back to Medicare.
Speaker 4: He brought out the Medicare card from his pocket, which
Speaker 4: we've sent him to a number of times.
Speaker 2: And all you need is this little thing here, Prith.
Speaker 2: You just need your Medicare card, not your credit card
Speaker 2: because labor.
Speaker 4: And I think for Peter Dutton it was very much
Speaker 4: about getting his campaign back onto the two key messages
Speaker 4: of the cost of living.
Speaker 3: I want to provide support to Australians from the first
Speaker 3: day that we're elected, and that is through a twenty
Speaker 3: five cent a leader cut to fuel both diesel and unleaded.
Speaker 3: It'll help families, it'll help businesses, it'll help pegitics.
Speaker 4: And also national security.
Speaker 3: I want to make sure that we can live in
Speaker 3: a safe country. The Prime Minister says that we live
Speaker 3: the most curious period since the end of the Second
Speaker 3: World War, since nineteen forty five, and then takes eighty
Speaker 3: billion dollars out of defense.
Speaker 4: Peter Dutton also talked about the housing crosses and what
Speaker 4: he would do to ease that if he was to
Speaker 4: become Prime minister.
Speaker 3: A person is coming in every forty four seconds into
Speaker 3: our country and we haven't got the housing to accommodate
Speaker 3: that show them we need to get the sequencing right
Speaker 3: and it's why we're putting five billion dollars into a
Speaker 3: program to create five hundred thousand new homes.
Speaker 4: And so Peter Dutton tried to remind people that one
Speaker 4: of his key policies is to let less people into
Speaker 4: the country than the Albanesi government has done over the
Speaker 4: last three years.
Speaker 1: Both political parties are very similar when it comes to immigration.
Speaker 1: But there was a moment where it felt like Peter
Speaker 1: Dutton was wrong folded by a man asking about the
Speaker 1: impact of international students. He was worried that the plan
Speaker 1: to reduce the numbers would make UNI more expensive for
Speaker 1: his son.
Speaker 4: How will those universities pick up the short and will
Speaker 4: will my son's unifees increase?
Speaker 1: What did you make of that moment, Jason Well, I
Speaker 1: thought it was a really interesting question.
Speaker 4: It gave Peter Dutton a moment of pause. You know,
Speaker 4: he didn't quite know how to answer that question.
Speaker 3: The short answer is no, because what we do as
Speaker 3: a government is we provide that funding to universities and
Speaker 3: obviously there's a health scheme where students are paying for
Speaker 3: part of their own education as well. What we've done though,
Speaker 3: is that we've said under the government's.
Speaker 4: It was Yeah, it was a really good moment in
Speaker 4: this debate, A really one of those candid moments that
Speaker 4: sticks with you.
Speaker 1: What Peter Dutton is firmly laying the blame mate and
Speaker 1: is at the feet of international students who he says
Speaker 1: are causing the crisis in housing around Australia.
Speaker 3: I want desperately to make sure that we get an
Speaker 3: opportunity for young people to believe in and achieve again
Speaker 3: and the dream of home ownership. They are about forty
Speaker 3: two international students coming into our country for every one
Speaker 3: student accommodation unit that's been approved, and that has had
Speaker 3: a big impact. So it doesn't is.
Speaker 1: This working for him to blame students like that.
Speaker 4: I don't think so, Daniel, because I'm not sure that
Speaker 4: international students come to Australia and buy the sorts of
Speaker 4: houses that ordinary working families are trying to buy. I
Speaker 4: don't see too many international students living in outer suburban
Speaker 4: areas and in our bigger cities. International students tend to
Speaker 4: cram themselves into small apartments very close to the campuses
Speaker 4: where they're studying. And I just don't get the feeling
Speaker 4: that international students are taking houses other Australian residents are
Speaker 4: trying to rent or buy. And I'm not sure that
Speaker 4: it's going to work for Peter Dutton in the long term.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, who was more convincing on
Speaker 1: the economy?
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Speaker 2: My question to Peter is that you have posed every
Speaker 2: cost of living measure that we're put forward over the
Speaker 2: last three years in government. You now are going to
Speaker 2: an election with a nuclear plan that will build seven
Speaker 2: nuclear reactors that will cost six hundred dollars to provide
Speaker 2: four percent of power sometime in the twenty forties. What
Speaker 2: are you going to cut to pay for it? Because
Speaker 2: the private sector won't fund nuclear reactors because it doesn't
Speaker 2: stack up. So tax payers, including everyone in this room,
Speaker 2: is going to have to pay for this nuclear plan.
Speaker 1: Jason Anthony Albernezi challenged Peter Dutton directly on his nuclear plan.
Speaker 1: Is this ultimately shaping up to be an energy election?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the government wants to make it an
Speaker 4: election about Peter Dutton's nuclear policy, and Peter Dutton wants
Speaker 4: to make it an election about Anthony Albinezi's failure to
Speaker 4: bring power bills down by two hundred and seventy dollars
Speaker 4: a year, which is of course what he promised before
Speaker 4: the last election.
Speaker 3: When you go to the supermarket now you're now paying
Speaker 3: thirty percent more for groceries, paying about thirty two percent
Speaker 3: more for your electricity and the Prime Minister promised at
Speaker 3: one of these debates at the last election that your
Speaker 3: power bills would go down by two hundred and seventy
Speaker 3: five dollars. Instead they're up by thirteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: So I think both leaders are coming at this issue
Speaker 4: from different perspectives. Both leaders are throwing around a lot
Speaker 4: of numbers. They're talking about the cost of gas and
Speaker 4: bringing it down by percentages, and they're both arguing about
Speaker 4: each other's costings plan. Peter Dutton says his plan is
Speaker 4: forty four percent cheaper than the government's energy transition plan.
Speaker 4: The Prime Minister says the coalition's nuclear plan will cost
Speaker 4: six hundred billion dollars, which of course Peter Dutton disputes.
Speaker 4: So when you have both leaders throwing these big numbers
Speaker 4: around like that in a very short space of time,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that most voters really understand what they're
Speaker 4: arguing about it. It's quite confusing, and I think when
Speaker 4: it comes to concerns that voters might have, Peter Dutton's
Speaker 4: pledged to build six or seven nuclear power stations is
Speaker 4: probably more concerning to them than Anthony Albanesi's plan to
Speaker 4: build more wind farms. And put more solar panels on
Speaker 4: people's roofs.
Speaker 1: I mean both leaders were flooding the zone with heaps
Speaker 1: of different numbers being thrown at us during the debate.
Speaker 1: But through that, Jason, what did Dunn actually have to
Speaker 1: say about his nuclear plant?
Speaker 4: Well, he didn't say all that much about it. He
Speaker 4: did try to say that in Canada in France, that
Speaker 4: there's a lot of nuclear power in their energy grids.
Speaker 3: In France there is seventy percent nuclear in the system.
Speaker 3: Our policy is to make sure that we can underpin
Speaker 3: our economy with a stable energy market for the next
Speaker 3: hundred years.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that that strikes accord with many voters
Speaker 4: when he's talking about the next one hundred years, because
Speaker 4: people who are worried about their power bills want them
Speaker 4: to come down fairly soon, and Peter Dutton's nuclear policy
Speaker 4: is not going to do that over the next ten
Speaker 4: ten years because the first nuclear power plants not scheduled
Speaker 4: to come online until the mid twenty thirties. The one
Speaker 4: thing that Peter Dunton sounded a bit better on was
Speaker 4: when he was talking about how much his policy will
Speaker 4: cost versus what the Prime Minister is offering now.
Speaker 3: Your plan independently cost it by Frontier Economics, a company
Speaker 3: used by the Labor Party and probably the best economist
Speaker 3: when it comes to looking at energy policy in the country,
Speaker 3: puts the Labor Party policy of renewables only at six
Speaker 3: hundred billion dollars. Our policy is forty four percent cheaper
Speaker 3: than that two hundred and thirty one billion dollars in total.
Speaker 4: And I thought Peter Dutton was quite convincing on that
Speaker 4: issue when it comes to the relative costings that each
Speaker 4: party is applying to their energy policies.
Speaker 1: As with most elections, Jason, ultimately both sides are trying
Speaker 1: to convince voters they are better at managing the economy.
Speaker 1: He was more convincing on that front.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think either leader delivered a knockout blow here,
Speaker 4: but this is the coalition's number one bread and butter issue,
Speaker 4: and I did think Peter Dutton made some good points
Speaker 4: about the coalition's strength when it comes to economic management,
Speaker 4: but he didn't really land a blow on the Prime Minister.
Speaker 4: And I think the Prime Minister was able to point
Speaker 4: out that Labor is the only party that has delivered
Speaker 4: two budget surpluses in the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: A seventy eight billion dollar deficit we inherited, We turned
Speaker 2: that into a twenty two bion dollar surplus, and then
Speaker 2: we turned a deficit of more than fifty bon into
Speaker 2: a fifteen bion dollar surplus.
Speaker 4: The Coalition had been promising a surplus, of course, it
Speaker 4: famously didn't deliver one under Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull or
Speaker 4: Tony Abbott. And so I think Minister was able to
Speaker 4: show that well Labor has been managing the economy relatively
Speaker 4: well compared to the Coalition. He was also able to
Speaker 4: make the point that interest rates have started coming down,
Speaker 4: that inflation within the Reserve Banks target band. And I
Speaker 4: think when it comes to rebuttal that the Prime Minister
Speaker 4: did a pretty good job there as well.
Speaker 1: Jason, the Prime Minister won the debate. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: what did it tell you about how he's faring at
Speaker 1: this point in the campaign?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, because this debate was in front of
Speaker 4: a studio audience of the people in that room, I
Speaker 4: didn't detect much anger towards the Prime Minister. There wasn't
Speaker 4: from what I could tell, much of a mood for change.
Speaker 4: And I thought that was really telling that if this
Speaker 4: is a random sample of ordinary voters. It didn't seem
Speaker 4: to me like most of them wanted to throw the
Speaker 4: Prime minister out. You often hear political pundits talking about
Speaker 4: voters you're waiting with baseball bats to smash the incumbent.
Speaker 4: I couldn't see any of those sort of baseball bats
Speaker 4: in the audience tonight, So I think the Prime Minister
Speaker 4: would come away feeling you are reassured that he's not
Speaker 4: really on the nose with voters, if that audience is
Speaker 4: an accurate snapshot of the electorate.
Speaker 1: Jason, thanks so much for burning the midnight all for us.
Speaker 4: Daniel, It's always great to talk with you, and beyond
Speaker 4: seven am.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, thousands of public hospital doctors
Speaker 1: in New South Wales are participating in a three day
Speaker 1: strike pleading for better pay and conditions to stop colleagues
Speaker 1: fleeing to other states. Doctors from more than thirty New
Speaker 1: South Wales public hospitals walked off the job yesterday seeking
Speaker 1: a one off thirty percent salary increase and better working conditions,
Speaker 1: including guarantee breaks. He's the first strike by New South
Speaker 1: Wales doctors in more than twenty five years. Thousands of
Speaker 1: workers at Star and Entertainment casinos have had their positions
Speaker 1: saved after a US gaming giant has signed a rescue
Speaker 1: package to keep the business from falling into administration. Star
Speaker 1: Entertainment has signed a three hundred million dollar agreement with
Speaker 1: Bally's Corporation, with Bally's paying one hundred million immediately to
Speaker 1: keep Cassina doors open across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney.
Speaker 1: This has been seven am. Thanks for listening.