WEBVTT - The war inside the Liberal Party over quotas

0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:11.039
<v Speaker 1>Hi, I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM.

0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.880
<v Speaker 1>The Liberal Party knows it needs to change, but the

0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.919
<v Speaker 1>battle over how is already tearing the party apart. Susan

0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.680
<v Speaker 1>Lee has declared herself a zalot for getting more women

0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.119
<v Speaker 1>into Parliament, but she faces stiff resistance from Angus Taylor,

0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.479
<v Speaker 1>Tony Abbott and others who see quotas as undemocratic and

0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.720
<v Speaker 1>an attack on the idea of merit. But gender imbalance

0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.839
<v Speaker 1>is not the only problem they're facing. Unless the party

0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.280
<v Speaker 1>finds a way to broaden its appeal, it will continue

0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.639
<v Speaker 1>to suffer what Liberal insiders call a spiral or disaster

0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.880
<v Speaker 1>that feeds on itself, and the end result, they fear,

0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.360
<v Speaker 1>is an inability to ever win again. Today, National correspondent

0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.600
<v Speaker 1>for the Saturday paper, Mike Second and why the Liberal

0:00:51.600 --> 0:01:05.959
<v Speaker 1>Party can't agree on how to save itself. It's Monday, Mike.

0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.480
<v Speaker 1>We know quoters are the philosophical equivalent of tript unite

0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.640
<v Speaker 1>to many in the Liberal Party, even as they basically

0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.520
<v Speaker 1>all know that they need to attract more female candidates.

0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.920
<v Speaker 1>So what other ideas have they got to solve their

0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:19.720
<v Speaker 1>issue with women?

0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.559
<v Speaker 2>Well, there's an interesting one that's been around this past

0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.800
<v Speaker 2>week or so from Julian Lisa, who's a longtime member

0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.000
<v Speaker 2>and currently Shadow Attorney General, and he's been championing this

0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.399
<v Speaker 2>for years, and that is that they would shift to

0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:34.880
<v Speaker 2>primary elections.

0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:36.800
<v Speaker 1>Well.

0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.679
<v Speaker 3>The New South Wales Liberal Party is considering adopting US

0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:44.200
<v Speaker 3>style primaries when selecting its election candidates, the Daily Telegraph

0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.600
<v Speaker 3>reporting this morning, members of the public will be able

0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.080
<v Speaker 3>to vote on who should represent the major party under

0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:51.440
<v Speaker 3>a proposal.

0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.640
<v Speaker 2>Much like the Democrats and the Republicans have in the States,

0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.800
<v Speaker 2>and they have in certain areas of Britain, whereby a

0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.120
<v Speaker 2>candidate selection wouldn't be a matter for members of the

0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.240
<v Speaker 2>party but could be thrown open to the broader community.

0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.799
<v Speaker 2>His model, and he's open to refining it. Under his idea,

0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.280
<v Speaker 2>the party would put up a sort of list of

0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.919
<v Speaker 2>a roster of candidates, and then the citizen who would

0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.760
<v Speaker 2>gather in a school hall or somewhere and people would

0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:21.520
<v Speaker 2>get to vote on who should be the candidate.

0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.760
<v Speaker 4>People who are not party members but who wanted to

0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.919
<v Speaker 4>participate in choosing their Liberal candidate could also play play

0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.600
<v Speaker 4>a role and select their candidate. What this would mean

0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.320
<v Speaker 4>is that people are not being selected behind closed doors anymore.

0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.880
<v Speaker 2>So it would broaden the demographics of those making the

0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.080
<v Speaker 2>candidates selection, and the hope would be, of course, that

0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.560
<v Speaker 2>that would make the candidates more palatable to the broader electric.

0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.760
<v Speaker 1>And what if people inside the party said to you

0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:51.880
<v Speaker 1>about whether primaries could work.

0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:57.280
<v Speaker 2>Look, they've raised very real concerns, logistical as much as anything.

0:02:57.520 --> 0:02:59.920
<v Speaker 2>Primaries are an expensive thing to run, for a start,

0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.200
<v Speaker 2>so there would be cost involved. The other thing is

0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.520
<v Speaker 2>they worry about people turning up to vote in a

0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.960
<v Speaker 2>primary who actually don't have the best interests of the

0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.520
<v Speaker 2>Liberal Party at art, and therefore might stack the case

0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.040
<v Speaker 2>for the candidate they perceive to be the weakest. There's

0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.720
<v Speaker 2>also the question about, you know, as we've seen in America,

0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.280
<v Speaker 2>you know, big money coming in behind one or another

0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.840
<v Speaker 2>candidate on behalf of vested interests. So there's some real

0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.239
<v Speaker 2>logistical issues to be resolved. And then of course there's

0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.880
<v Speaker 2>also ideological ones, you know, which is it dilutes the

0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:35.880
<v Speaker 2>say of the rank and file who pay their membership

0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.560
<v Speaker 2>and turn up to meetings, Well, why is their voting

0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:40.840
<v Speaker 2>power suddenly diluted? You would have to think that a

0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.280
<v Speaker 2>lot of them would resent that, as would a number

0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:44.880
<v Speaker 2>of incumbent candidates, I would.

0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.400
<v Speaker 1>Think, so, how does it currently work.

0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.520
<v Speaker 2>Well, it varies a bit by state, but essentially, you know,

0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:52.920
<v Speaker 2>there are two means of selection. It's either done by

0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.200
<v Speaker 2>the rank and file of the branch, the grassroots membership,

0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.560
<v Speaker 2>or by the party organization, or by some combination of

0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.920
<v Speaker 2>those two. You know, in either case it's a small

0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:04.760
<v Speaker 2>group of people making the call as to who the

0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.520
<v Speaker 2>candidate would be. The problem here is, of course, that

0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:09.840
<v Speaker 2>the Liberal Party is not a unitary thing. It's a

0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.560
<v Speaker 2>federated structure, meaning each state jurisdiction is sovereign and it

0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.919
<v Speaker 2>has its own constitution. So in order to make a change,

0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.400
<v Speaker 2>whether for quotas or for the primaries, you would have

0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.360
<v Speaker 2>to persuade each of these states and territories to change,

0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.400
<v Speaker 2>you know, And as one senior moderate from New South

0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.960
<v Speaker 2>Wales put it to me, that might be less difficult

0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.640
<v Speaker 2>in his state, for example, which is, you know, as

0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.960
<v Speaker 2>he described it, more mainstream than some of the others.

0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.040
<v Speaker 2>Even then it's unlikely, you know, a fifty percent quota

0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.400
<v Speaker 2>would get up, but maybe something smaller would in his view.

0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.160
<v Speaker 2>But you know, he pointed to the example of South Australia,

0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.760
<v Speaker 2>which he put it has been overrun by religious conservatives.

0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.680
<v Speaker 2>So you can see that this federated structure makes it

0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.320
<v Speaker 2>very logistically difficult to make change. You know, you can't

0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.240
<v Speaker 2>just say from the top down where this is how

0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.400
<v Speaker 2>it's going to work. And I suspect that this is

0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.560
<v Speaker 2>why Susan Lee has walked a bit carefully on this,

0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.400
<v Speaker 2>you know, called herself agnostic on the matter of quotas.

0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.679
<v Speaker 5>Now, I'm agnostic on specific methods to make it happen,

0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.400
<v Speaker 5>but I am a zealot that it actually does happen.

0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.320
<v Speaker 5>Current approaches have clearly not worked, so I'm open to

0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:18.919
<v Speaker 5>any approach that will.

0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.279
<v Speaker 2>I suspect that she would really like to change the

0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.880
<v Speaker 2>system such that we do have quotas, But she, as

0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.000
<v Speaker 2>many others, realize that there's really not a great deal

0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:31.120
<v Speaker 2>of chance getting it up.

0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.320
<v Speaker 5>As the first woman leader of our federal party, let

0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:39.040
<v Speaker 5>me send the clearest possible message. We need to do better,

0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.760
<v Speaker 5>recruit better, retain better, and support better.

0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:56.680
<v Speaker 1>After the break a corolla full of women, Mike tell

0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.279
<v Speaker 1>me about the Liberal Party membership as it is now.

0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.040
<v Speaker 1>Who makes its ranks.

0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.120
<v Speaker 2>Well, mostly old white guys. That's not my description. That

0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.080
<v Speaker 2>comes from a source who actually said, male, pale and stale,

0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.960
<v Speaker 2>he said, and he went under his site some stats.

0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.760
<v Speaker 2>According to him, the average branch member in New South

0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.920
<v Speaker 2>Wales is now more than seventy years old I think

0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.280
<v Speaker 2>he said seventy two, but getting up there anyway, well

0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.479
<v Speaker 2>beyond normal retirement age and male. Someone from the Victorian

0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.200
<v Speaker 2>branch told me it's broadly the same demographic there and

0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:28.359
<v Speaker 2>there's no reason to assume that it would be different

0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.640
<v Speaker 2>in any other states. So yeah, essentially old white guys

0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.159
<v Speaker 2>making the calls. And of course the voters that the

0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.840
<v Speaker 2>party needs to attract obviously are about half that age

0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.320
<v Speaker 2>and female. So there's a problem here, you know. The

0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.520
<v Speaker 2>problem is that the branch rank and file is inclined

0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.440
<v Speaker 2>to select candidates attitudinally similar to them, and Australia has

0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.880
<v Speaker 2>moved on. Ten years ago there was a report commissioned

0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.080
<v Speaker 2>by the National Executive at the party which recommended a

0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.000
<v Speaker 2>target of fifty percent women candidates by twenty twenty five,

0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.280
<v Speaker 2>which of course now is well. In the twenty twenty

0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.880
<v Speaker 2>five election for the House of Representatives, twenty nine Liberals

0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.440
<v Speaker 2>were elected. Only six of them were women, so that's

0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.400
<v Speaker 2>about twenty percent. As Annabel Krab from the ABC rote

0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.360
<v Speaker 2>in a piece assuming that the new leader Susan Lee

0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.600
<v Speaker 2>gets a com car to go to Parliament House, the

0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.920
<v Speaker 2>rest of the female representation could fit in a to

0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.520
<v Speaker 2>out a corolla and drive themselves there.

0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:22.760
<v Speaker 1>That's such a good line.

0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.880
<v Speaker 2>It's a great line, isn't it And so evocative of

0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:26.440
<v Speaker 2>the problem.

0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.400
<v Speaker 1>And so when it comes to the demographics and to

0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:34.280
<v Speaker 1>quotas which Labor introduced decades ago, and they're proving to

0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.560
<v Speaker 1>be successful, measuring by how many women are in the

0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.360
<v Speaker 1>party at the moment. When it comes to liberals, who

0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.520
<v Speaker 1>inside the party is stopping them from just getting on

0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.240
<v Speaker 1>with introducing quotas.

0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.640
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's basically the conservatives.

0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.800
<v Speaker 1>Well a guy don't believe in quotas.

0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.280
<v Speaker 5>I don't think I believe in quotas for anything.

0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.400
<v Speaker 4>I just think you have to make judgments about individuals.

0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:02.040
<v Speaker 1>We do need to get more capable women into the

0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:03.200
<v Speaker 1>post how about quotas.

0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.040
<v Speaker 4>Look, I'm very much opposed to quotas.

0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:11.280
<v Speaker 2>Still the most recent example of course Angus Taylor, the

0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.000
<v Speaker 2>most senior of the New South Wales right wing members, and.

0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:19.400
<v Speaker 6>I'm never a believer in subverting democratic processes with quotas.

0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.440
<v Speaker 6>There's other ways I've found through the course of my

0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:26.920
<v Speaker 6>professional career through mentoring in particular attraction and recruitment processes,

0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.440
<v Speaker 6>retention processes as well.

0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.200
<v Speaker 2>Essentially said that it would subvert party democracy, which is

0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.840
<v Speaker 2>a pretty big call frankly, you know, as though quotas

0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:44.480
<v Speaker 2>and competent representation are somehow mutually exclusive. You know, various

0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.000
<v Speaker 2>reviews over the years have sought to spell out a

0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.480
<v Speaker 2>path forward by bringing more women into the party, and

0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.959
<v Speaker 2>the right always resists. Not only the right, though, I

0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.360
<v Speaker 2>would suggest there's a big incumbency factor here, you know,

0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.840
<v Speaker 2>if you're a male seat warmer sitting in the Parliament,

0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.840
<v Speaker 2>possibly contribut bitting possibly not the thought that women might

0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.440
<v Speaker 2>get a bit of a leg up, just on the

0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:07.680
<v Speaker 2>basis that their women would be anathema to you and

0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.920
<v Speaker 2>you would see it as a threat to your cozy existence.

0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.280
<v Speaker 1>Is there hope, Mike, that the various reviews could spell

0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.200
<v Speaker 1>out a path forward or revive the idea of quotas

0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.679
<v Speaker 1>in a way that makes it easier for Susan Lee

0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.800
<v Speaker 1>to push ahead with them despite such significant opposition.

0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.200
<v Speaker 2>I would like to offer hope. I mean, it's been

0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:28.679
<v Speaker 2>raised so many times and has never gone anywhere. You know,

0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.760
<v Speaker 2>there's at least two, arguably three of reviews going on

0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.960
<v Speaker 2>at the moment, and they will probably show some useful

0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:36.840
<v Speaker 2>things for the party. Like you know, it was a

0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.319
<v Speaker 2>mistake to target Anglo tradees in the outer suburbs when

0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.800
<v Speaker 2>what they should have been targeting was highly educated female

0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.040
<v Speaker 2>professional people in the metro areas. But as to how

0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:48.839
<v Speaker 2>they're going to do that, and as to how they're

0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.080
<v Speaker 2>going to get the candidates, particularly the female candidates they

0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.200
<v Speaker 2>need to do it, I don't hold out a lot

0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:54.920
<v Speaker 2>of hope. Frankly.

0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.679
<v Speaker 1>Beyond representation, what have we seen from the Liberals when

0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.880
<v Speaker 1>it comes to attempts to develop policies that appealed to

0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:02.679
<v Speaker 1>a broader base.

0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.720
<v Speaker 2>Well, this is an interesting thing too. I mean, if

0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.160
<v Speaker 2>we look at the last election, for example, it used

0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.640
<v Speaker 2>to be the case that the Liberals enjoyed a big

0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.640
<v Speaker 2>advantage over labor when it came to economic management. Well,

0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.760
<v Speaker 2>if you look at the published polls from the last election,

0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.560
<v Speaker 2>wasn't the case anymore. In the case of the cost

0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:21.760
<v Speaker 2>of living, you know, the economic issue that was most

0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.280
<v Speaker 2>resonant for most voters, it was pretty much a dead heat.

0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.000
<v Speaker 2>But you know, in terms of what the voters preferred.

0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.200
<v Speaker 2>So you know, if that's a dead heat, you've got

0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.640
<v Speaker 2>to start looking at other policy areas. So what did

0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.960
<v Speaker 2>we have We had We had a very flaky policy

0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:40.960
<v Speaker 2>on nuclear We had a policy on climate change, which

0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.360
<v Speaker 2>is important to younger voters, which was woefully inadequate. They

0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.440
<v Speaker 2>were behind on education, on health, on childcare, on all

0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.560
<v Speaker 2>those issues that concern younger voters and women. So you know,

0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.880
<v Speaker 2>it's not just a matter of candidate selection, it's a

0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:00.120
<v Speaker 2>matter of policy selection. It's a matter of campaigning in

0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:01.880
<v Speaker 2>the areas where they need to pick up the votes.

0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.160
<v Speaker 2>And so far they seem to be, you know, doing

0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:05.400
<v Speaker 2>it wrong on all of those things.

0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.160
<v Speaker 1>And if the Liberal Party fails to modernize, fails to

0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:14.800
<v Speaker 1>iron out all these deep fundamental problems they have within themselves,

0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.280
<v Speaker 1>what happens if they perish? What happens to Australian democracy.

0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:20.680
<v Speaker 2>Well, it would obviously be a bad thing for democracy,

0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.040
<v Speaker 2>I would argue. I mean, for democracy to function, you

0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.560
<v Speaker 2>need a government and you need a viable opposition to

0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.960
<v Speaker 2>test you know what the government is advancing in the parliament.

0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.280
<v Speaker 2>So it would be it would be a bad thing.

0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.520
<v Speaker 2>But I doubt that there would be a vacuum frankly,

0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.240
<v Speaker 2>I mean we've seen this on the conservative side of politics.

0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.760
<v Speaker 2>I mean, the Liberal Party itself grew out of the

0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:43.280
<v Speaker 2>failure of the previous Conservative United Australia Party. So particularly

0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.600
<v Speaker 2>on the conservative side of politics, this happens periodically. You know,

0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.480
<v Speaker 2>they arise, they do well, they die and they are

0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:51.920
<v Speaker 2>replaced by something better.

0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:52.320
<v Speaker 3>You know.

0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.520
<v Speaker 2>At the moment, we have suggestions out there, for example,

0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.560
<v Speaker 2>that the Teel candidates who've knocked off a bunch of

0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.520
<v Speaker 2>Liberals in their most you know, blue ribbon seats, that

0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.200
<v Speaker 2>they could form an alternative party that would present a

0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.800
<v Speaker 2>vision of what liberalism is to be, which is economically dry,

0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:10.920
<v Speaker 2>socially progressive.

0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.320
<v Speaker 1>As the great philosopher Eddie Vedder once said, its evolution, baby.

0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:40.680
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for match this. Also in the news, the Trump

0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.920
<v Speaker 1>administration's review of the Orcust Defense Pact, which was expected

0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.559
<v Speaker 1>to be published over the weekend, is incomplete. The American

0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.840
<v Speaker 1>review is being led by Senior peddicant On official Albert Colby,

0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.920
<v Speaker 1>who has made Commons skeptical of the defense arrangement in

0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.640
<v Speaker 1>the past. But despite that, Australia's Acting Defense Minister Patrick

0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.640
<v Speaker 1>Conroy says he is confident that the US will continue

0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.840
<v Speaker 1>to support the deal, which includes Australia receiving three to

0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:10.840
<v Speaker 1>FIVET Virginia class nuclear powered submarines and Brina Minster. Anthony

0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.040
<v Speaker 1>Albanezi will meet with President Jijing King this week as

0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.079
<v Speaker 1>part of his six day visit to China. China is

0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.439
<v Speaker 1>Australia's largest trading partner and trade is expected to dominate

0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.200
<v Speaker 1>the agenda. The visit comes in the wake of the

0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.440
<v Speaker 1>government's decision to step up screening of Chinese investment and

0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.720
<v Speaker 1>critical minerals. Tomorrow and seven AM we'll have a full

0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.520
<v Speaker 1>report on how China took over the global critical mineral

0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.839
<v Speaker 1>supply chain and what that means for Australia's future. Daniel

0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:38.880
<v Speaker 1>James is the seven AM see that