Speaker 1: Anthony Alberanzi. He started his campaign in Peter Dutton's seat
Speaker 1: of Dixon, which was absolutely a message to the opposition
Speaker 1: leader that labor is coming for him, that they're not
Speaker 1: worried about him. It's very messy girl politics, which I
Speaker 1: think quite a few people appreciated.
Speaker 2: As the Prime minister kicked off his election campaign. Chief
Speaker 2: political analyst at the Australia Institute, Amy Remichez was watching
Speaker 2: and does she heard Abenezi announce that he'd cracked down
Speaker 2: on the supermarkets and the opposition leader Peter Dutton talk
Speaker 2: about petrol prices. She was frustrated.
Speaker 1: Both political parties are focusing on the here and now,
Speaker 1: neither are dealing with any of the wider existential questions
Speaker 1: that Australians are grappling with. So they have narrowed the
Speaker 1: parameters of the campaign to basically just a cost of
Speaker 1: living crisis. An individual desire to be able to feed
Speaker 1: your family, afford housing and get by in life. And
Speaker 1: while they are very import important, of course, standard of
Speaker 1: living is exceptionally important. I think that most Australians are
Speaker 1: quite hungry for political leaders to react to what they
Speaker 1: are seeing, which is yes, their own individual situations, but
Speaker 1: also just what is happening in the world, because it's quite.
Speaker 2: Scary, from climate change to Australia's alliances. Amy says, our
Speaker 2: leaders are failing to talk about the things that will
Speaker 2: impact us for generations, and voters are noticing. From Schwartz Media,
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am today. Amy remiicus
Speaker 2: on the big questions we should be asking our politicians
Speaker 2: right now and what happens if we fail to. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: April one. Amy. The last election in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: was the climate election. We had Labor the tills and
Speaker 2: of course the Greens explicitly campaigning on the promise of
Speaker 2: addressing the climate crisis. The crisis is not fixed. So
Speaker 2: why do you think it is that we are not
Speaker 2: hearing about it now as we head into another election.
Speaker 1: I think partly we're not hearing about it because neither
Speaker 1: political party has a good message to tell here. The
Speaker 1: Coalition don't have a climate policy at all that they
Speaker 1: can speak to. They've recently come out with a new
Speaker 1: gas policy, but.
Speaker 3: Starting from the end of this finane of this calendar year,
Speaker 3: we have the ability to bring a lot of gas
Speaker 3: into the system. So that we can see that down
Speaker 3: with pressure not just on gas but on electricity prices
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: They've got this fantasy that nuclear is going to come
Speaker 1: along and sold everything, but we all know that that
Speaker 1: is not true on any measure that you want to
Speaker 1: measure it. So the Coalition don't have a story to
Speaker 1: tell there. Labor have a slightly better story, but they
Speaker 1: also don't have a great one. So Labor is still
Speaker 1: relying on fossil fuels. That also includes opening up new
Speaker 1: gas fields. They're already starting the exploration of those. And
Speaker 1: so I think that it pays for the political parties,
Speaker 1: the major political parties, not to talk about climate change
Speaker 1: because they don't actually have any story to tell. But
Speaker 1: I still think that it is a pretty big issue
Speaker 1: for a lot of Australians. We are seeing worsening impacts
Speaker 1: of climate change. We're still dealing with the impacts of
Speaker 1: Cyclone Alfred in Queensland. There is a massive flooding in
Speaker 1: southwest Queensland as we speak, which is having a huge
Speaker 1: impact on Grazia's We're talking about resilience, but we're spending
Speaker 1: way more money in disaster response than we are preparing
Speaker 1: communities for what is coming, but our politicians don't want
Speaker 1: to respond because it doesn't actually play for the political
Speaker 1: leaders to talk about it, because then they'd have to
Speaker 1: come up with the reasons as to why they're not
Speaker 1: acting on it. I wonder, though, what your thoughts are
Speaker 1: on which way around this is. Is it the case
Speaker 1: that politicians are responding to what they think voters want,
Speaker 1: which is this kind of focus on cost of living
Speaker 1: and their personal situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's a tricky one, right because when
Speaker 1: you speak to party strategists, they're talking about the focus
Speaker 1: groups where everyone is talking about inflation and their impact,
Speaker 1: and that's from the inner city seats where you might
Speaker 1: have people complaining that they can only afford to go
Speaker 1: on a domestic holiday this year instead of an international one,
Speaker 1: all the way down to the more crucial issues with inflation,
Speaker 1: which is people not being able to afford housing, food
Speaker 1: on the table, looking at having to take extra jobs
Speaker 1: in order to maintain a standard of living that previous
Speaker 1: generations took for granted. So obviously cost of living is
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly individually what everybody is folks focussing on. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, that doesn't mean that voters are not
Speaker 1: focusing on these giant existential issues which are coming for Australia.
Speaker 1: Everyone can see the worstening impacts of climate Everyone can
Speaker 1: see that the geopolitical situation is exceptionally unstable. Everyone can
Speaker 1: see that. You know, there is a shift across a
Speaker 1: lot of our allied nations towards more authoritarian and far
Speaker 1: right policies which are going to have impacts on Australia,
Speaker 1: even US all the way down here on the other
Speaker 1: end of the world. And if you don't have politicians
Speaker 1: respond to that, you're just going to see more voters
Speaker 1: become disenfranchised with their institutions.
Speaker 2: Well, where is the conversation about that? We've seen just
Speaker 2: last week one of the most significant security breaches in memory.
Speaker 2: A journalist was led into a group chat where senior
Speaker 2: US officials, including the Vice President Jed E. Vance, we
Speaker 2: organizing strikes on houthy targets. So what are the broader
Speaker 2: implications of this moment for Australia.
Speaker 1: The broader implications is that Australia cannot trust the United
Speaker 1: States with its information. We cannot trust the United States
Speaker 1: with the intelligence that we pump through it as a
Speaker 1: member of the Five Eyes network. There is so many
Speaker 1: security implications to this breach because this is the one
Speaker 1: that we know about because the journalist wrote about it.
Speaker 1: You know, who knows what other foreign actors may have
Speaker 1: access to American information because we've seen this US administration
Speaker 1: already start to cozy up more to Russia than previous administrations.
Speaker 1: And you know, Russia is not an ally of Australia.
Speaker 1: So this is huge, not just in the security world,
Speaker 1: but in terms of how Australia treats its relationship with
Speaker 1: the United States. And so far we're not actually any
Speaker 1: sort of response from our leaders where we're going, hey,
Speaker 1: we need to start actually questioning this, We need to
Speaker 1: actually start being aware of what is happening with this shift,
Speaker 1: because this is not normal. We have the Albanasy Labor
Speaker 1: Party saying, hey, we think the relationship can withstand different leaders,
Speaker 1: and then we have Peter Dutton's coalition saying, actually, we
Speaker 1: think we can get along better with Donald Trump than
Speaker 1: Labor can. And I don't think that that's what a
Speaker 1: lot of Australians are thinking that they want from their
Speaker 1: leaders at this.
Speaker 4: Point in time.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, how Dutton and Albanezi should
Speaker 2: be talking about Trump.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Daniel James. Seven Am tells stories that need
Speaker 4: to be told. Our journalism is founded on trust and independence,
Speaker 4: and now we're increasing our coverage. Every Saturday until the election,
Speaker 4: will bring you an extra episode to break down the
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Speaker 2: How do you think that Dutton and Albanesi could have
Speaker 2: this conversation about how to reposition Australia now that the
Speaker 2: United States is no longer a reliable ally. How could
Speaker 2: they have that conversation without putting Australian industry in peril? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean we often phrase this about like not annoying America,
Speaker 2: not putting you know, our industry in peril because of
Speaker 2: the connections to America, and then you look at what Canada,
Speaker 2: which is much closer geographically to America, which has much
Speaker 2: stronger trade ties. I think there was about eight hundred
Speaker 2: billion that went between the two nations in trade that
Speaker 2: are absolutely muscle up to the United States.
Speaker 1: I mean the new Prime Minister Mark Carney, he basically
Speaker 1: refused to take Donald Trump's call because he just said, well,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not an ally at the moment. The
Speaker 1: old relationship we had with the United States, based on
Speaker 1: deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military
Speaker 1: cooperations is over. And literally came out and spoke to
Speaker 1: the Canadian people. But exactly the United States does next
Speaker 1: is unclear. But what is clear. What is clear is
Speaker 1: that we as Canadians have agency, we have power. Since then,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been quite conciliatory to Canada and has
Speaker 1: promised to open up dialogue over the tariffs and things
Speaker 1: like that. Australia is not in a position to do
Speaker 1: as much as Canada has, particularly when it comes to trade,
Speaker 1: and that is because we're in a trade deficit with
Speaker 1: the United States. But that doesn't mean that there are
Speaker 1: not other markets that would take Australian product, and there
Speaker 1: are so many other nations that need what Australia has.
Speaker 1: Australia is just kind of stuck in this oh it's
Speaker 1: the United States or nobody mentality, when that's not true.
Speaker 1: We are in a strategic relationship with the United States
Speaker 1: through the Orcus Deal, which basically locks us into America's
Speaker 1: military plans. We're basically just capitulating and just saying, please, America,
Speaker 1: don't be mad at us. And I do not think
Speaker 1: that is the way that you move forward in this
Speaker 1: geopolitical space.
Speaker 2: And there's another factor here, Amy, and that is the
Speaker 2: media and their responsibility to hold politicians to account. But
Speaker 2: what we've been seeing over the past few weeks is
Speaker 2: politicians engaging less with journalists and more with influencers and
Speaker 2: online content creators. Labor even flew some podcasters to Camber
Speaker 2: to be in the budget lockup. So tell me what
Speaker 2: the thinking is here and whether this will have an impact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the influencers and content creators and new media being
Speaker 1: in the budget lock up isn't actually new. They also
Speaker 1: did it last year, so just nobody was paying attention
Speaker 1: because we weren't, you know, in an election campaign then.
Speaker 1: And of course the Trump election turbocharged everything we think
Speaker 1: we know about new media because Trump didn't pay any
Speaker 1: attention to legacy media and just focused on podcasts, online
Speaker 1: influences and those in the new media space. But we're
Speaker 1: also seeing that shift in Australia and have for some
Speaker 1: time where we have you know, new media outlets emerging,
Speaker 1: and they're attracting an audience, and that's why politicians are
Speaker 1: going to them. Politicians aren't going to them to be
Speaker 1: cool or to be the head of the curve. Politicians
Speaker 1: go where the audience is. And you know, these new
Speaker 1: media voices that we're seeing emerging, be it on social
Speaker 1: media or podcasts, they are winning an audience, particularly of
Speaker 1: younger people, so people under forty, and they are picking
Speaker 1: up on that trend where people are not going to
Speaker 1: legacy media anymore. And so of course we're all freaking
Speaker 1: out about it because it's change, but it's still serving
Speaker 1: an audience.
Speaker 2: Sure. But the counterpoint here, I suppose, is that an
Speaker 2: influencer might not come to a political interview with the
Speaker 2: same critical lens as a journalist. They might not hold
Speaker 2: a party leader to account in the same way.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say that, you know, we've seen plenty
Speaker 1: of interviews and legacy media where you could say exactly
Speaker 1: the same thing. You could turn on to GB and
Speaker 1: not see, you know, a political leader being held to account.
Speaker 1: You can turn to Sky News and not see a
Speaker 1: political leader being held to account. You can turn on
Speaker 1: the ABC and perhaps see things that you know look
Speaker 1: like someone's being held to account, but not necessarily are
Speaker 1: might be somebody else framing the talking points. That's not
Speaker 1: to say that media doesn't have a role and that
Speaker 1: critical thinking is not very important. But I think the
Speaker 1: skepticism that is coming to legacy media is coming because
Speaker 1: audiences don't feel that they are holding political leaders to account.
Speaker 1: I think people will at least find it a little
Speaker 1: refreshing that they know the position that the interviewer is
Speaker 1: starting from in those cases, whereas in legacy media, we're
Speaker 1: all still pretending that none of us have biases or
Speaker 1: thoughts outside of that one particular interview.
Speaker 2: Amy, thank you so much for your time, Thank you
Speaker 2: for having me. Also in the news today, Australian authorities
Speaker 2: are monitoring a Chinese spy ship sitting off the coast
Speaker 2: in the Great Australian Bite. Anthony Albanezi has confirmed. The
Speaker 2: Prime Minister said he'd prefer that it wasn't there, but
Speaker 2: that it will continue to be monitored as it returns
Speaker 2: towards China. The research vessel is capable of exploring depths
Speaker 2: of up to ten thousand meters and is thought to
Speaker 2: be used for intelligence gathering and scientific research, and Donald
Speaker 2: Trump will try to seek a third term as president
Speaker 2: of the United States, despite the Constitution explicitly stating that
Speaker 2: no person shall be elected to the office of the
Speaker 2: president more than twice. In an interview with NBC News,
Speaker 2: President Trump said he's not joking about the plan and
Speaker 2: says there are methods to make it happen, without stating
Speaker 2: what they are. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.