WEBVTT - Sean Kelly on the right’s identity crisis 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:09.040 I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. The 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.240 Liberal Party is locked in a very public power struggle. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.760 The coalition has broken apart, and one nation is on 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.840 the rise. What's emerging isn't just a shift in support. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.400 It's something deeper, a realignment of the conservative side of politics, 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.480 with broader ramifications for Australian politics that we're only beginning 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:33.920 to understand. Today. Political columnist and former Labor advisor Sean 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.520 Kelly on what's breaking inside conservative politics, what it means 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:48.040 for the government and what comes next. It's Saturday, January 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:56.520 thirty one. Sean always good to see. This week, Andrew 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.560 Hasty and Angus Taylor meant in a leafy album suburb 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.240 to talk about who might challenge for the leadership. 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.520 Andrew Hasty and Angus Taylor have met face to face, 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.960 flanked by senior members of Susan Lee's front bench. Our 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.840 political reporter Ruben Spargo is live with me in the 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.760 studio and the meeting occurs just hours before a memorial 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.959 for former MP Katie Allen, ye Angus Taylor and Andrew. 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.520 Yesterday, Andrew Hasty announced he wouldn't challenge because he doesn't 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.600 have enough support for now. So what does it say 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.880 about where the Liberal Party is at that these two 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:30.920 were the two men putting their hands up. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.760 Well, I mean, firstly, it suggests what we've known for 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.480 a long time, which is that Susan Lee was never 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.720 going to be given a real chance to lead the party, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.399 despite the fact that she stood up to the Nationals, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.040 which is what all Liberals in fact have been saying 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.560 is exactly what she should have done. So despite the 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.000 fact she did apparently the right thing, in the eyes 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.680 of the Liberals, she's still under a men's pressure. And 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.560 really this has been the case ever since she took 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:00.760 the job. There was a sense in large parts of 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.560 the party that this was never going to be a 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.880 long term proposition. That's a difficult spot for the Liberals 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.880 because of course she is a female leader. There is 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.120 a sense that the party has a problem with women 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.160 and this is certainly not going to help them with that. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.480 The other thing that is worth noting about the contest 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.040 between Angus Taylor and Andrew Hasty is that there's a 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.400 little bit of a kind of symbolic split there, and 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.400 the divide is between an older version of the Liberal 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.000 Party kind of John Howard version of the Liberal Party, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.680 and I should say this, I think is Angus Taylor's 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.400 to some extent self serving framing of the contest, but 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.639 nonetheless there is some truth to it. It's that kind 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:48.560 of older style of Liberal with a conservative economic approach. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.560 Deficits are up, spending is up, taxes are up. But 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.520 the one thing that he is down and collapsed is 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.360 Australian standard of living that's fallen more than ever before 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.200 any history, more than any of our. 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:04.560 Andrew Hasty representing the new direction of the Liberal Party 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:10.600 position further to the right, very conservative, very conservative on 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.080 social issues, really a kind of cultural war liberal. 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.040 We have a problem with radical Islamic theology. And I 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.040 think one of the areas that we really need to 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.480 look at is immigration. And numbers are one thing, but 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.079 I think who we bring into our country is really important. 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.880 But also, as some other people have pointed out, I 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:34.200 think there is a much more significant rift opening up 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.560 over exactly the party's relationship to its history and the 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:43.280 party's relationship to economics and the current economic model which 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.920 has really governed Australia for the last few decades. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.080 We'll keep it on that one of the un folds, 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.520 but let's talk about the Nationals. They're about to have 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.840 a spill themselves, with one backbencher challenging for the leadership 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.200 because he says they face political oblivion if they don't 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.840 get back together with the Liberal Party. Is he writer, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.360 the national is basically done if that doesn't happen. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.480 Yes, certainly, that's what we're seeing in the polling. In fact, 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.960 according to Newspoll, one Nation is polling ahead of the 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.480 entire coalition, not just the Nationals. But that certainly means 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.000 they're likely to be very competitive with the Nationals in 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.560 some seats if an election were held right now. So 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.080 the Nationals see themselves in this contest with one Nation, 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.880 and that is driving a lot of their attempts to 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.960 differentiate themselves from the Liberals. Arguably it's driven this split 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.280 within the coalition. But the problem for the Nationals, while 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.599 trying to differentiate themselves from one Nation, or rather trying 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.640 to differentiate themselves from the Liberals and compete with one Nation, 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.039 they're forgotten that their largest advantage over one Nation is 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.159 that they have been a party of government in the coalition. 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:53.599 They could deliver change, they could deliver funding to their electorates. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.400 If they're not in a coalition, that advantage vanishes, and 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.240 suddenly they simply compete with one nation on how well 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.000 they appeal to voters on their issues. And the difficulty 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.599 for the Nationals here is that so much of politics 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.480 has become about grievance, so much of politics has become 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:18.600 about polarization and identity and indicating that you're on one 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.280 team or another, and in that contest, to go further 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.000 to the right, to indicate that you are an absolutist 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:30.600 in certain ultra conservative ways. One nation can always do 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.320 better than the nationals, or certainly it has historically, and 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.440 so it's hard to see exactly what the Nationals can 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.520 gain in the long term from this split. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.880 Long the term, Sean, what does the rupture on the 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.360 right of politics in this country mean for our politics 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.960 more broadly from left to right? How does this reshape 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:55.719 the political landscape in this country? 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.520 Well, I mean probably the dominant effect is that it 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.200 has every chance of meaning that just isn't a viable 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.000 opposition in the near future. Now I'm not saying that's 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.560 necessarily the case. Anything can change in politics, but the 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.200 current environment, and it's been this case for a while, 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.840 really is that the Liberal Party, the Coalition is not 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.479 providing a strong opposition. That means there isn't a lot 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.440 of pressure on labor, and that means that Anthony Albaneasi 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.200 is much closer to his professed goal of making labor 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:29.839 the natural party of government. 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.320 What we're seeing is real indulgence from what used to 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.680 be called the coalition, but from people who simply don't 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.279 like each other. And if you can't govern yourselves, I 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.320 don't see how you can be an alternative government of 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:47.000 the country. 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.279 Is that a good thing? Lots of people, you know, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.719 lots of labor people would of course say yes. Part 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.600 of the answer to whether that is a good thing 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.440 comes in whether you think the Labor Party is doing enough. 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.080 And I think there is always an argument that a 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.359 country benefits when you have a strong government and a 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.640 strong opposition. That actually, whatever your political beliefs, you need 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.560 an opposition which is taking it up to the government 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.400 in certain ways, which is holding the government accountable certain ways, 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.320 and we certainly don't have that at the moment. I 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:20.960 think that is an issue for the country overall. 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:37.240 Coming up. Has one nation's popularity peaked sean one nation 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.240 is reaping the benefits of this shift right now, So 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.840 why is that? What are the conditions that allow one 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.440 nation to thrive as they are at the moment. 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.560 Well, well, one of them arguably is coalition chaos, but 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.840 there are also real structural forces which drive support for 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.520 one nation. David mar wrote a quarterly essay about Paul 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.240 in House in One Nation ten years ago, and he 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:04.840 identified a few causes. Nostalgia was one, concerned for law 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.440 and order was another. But there were two really big ones, 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:13.320 and they're not very surprising. One is being anti immigration. 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.800 Some of that can be antipathy towards migrants, some of 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:21.480 it might be racism. Some of it is racism, yeah. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:26.200 And then the other is distrust of government. And what 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.800 we've seen over recent years is rises in both of 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.200 those things. We know, distrust of government, distrust of institutions 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.200 has been on a rising trend line for quite some time, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.080 you know, some variations, but that's been the overall direction 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.719 of travel. Migration. Meanwhile, and this is interesting and I 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.040 think quite disturbing. Ten years ago, one third of Australian 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.200 said that migration was too high. It is now over 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.720 half of us who say migration numbers are too high. 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:59.160 Now you could say that some of that is particularly 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.360 of this moment, and that is because migration numbers were 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.880 particularly high after COVID. But it meant that retric on 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.840 the Coalition side really amped up about migration and of 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.760 course within one nation as well, and it meant that 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.880 labor as well. We're talking about bringing down migration numbers. Now, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.959 the truth is we do rely on migration in this country. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.000 We rely on skilled migration in this country. We know 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:25.920 that we have a number of skilled shortages and we 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.440 are going to continue to rely on skilled migration for 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.120 a very long time to come. But you do have 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.800 the parties, the major parties united really in talking about 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.000 a general aim of bringing migration down since those years, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.280 and of course that tends to amplify that message out 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.439 to voters as well. That is tied to another issue. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.480 It is tied to the economy and very specifically to housing, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.600 and you can see really strong efforts by Andrew Hasty 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.559 in particular to link these issues with quite dramatic rhetoric. 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.720 Now Labour talk about how housing supply crisis, but this 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.920 is a housing demand crisis driven by unsustainable immigration. It's 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.439 that simple, and Deputy Speaker, we must act that overseas 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:14.280 migration must come down. Our first allegiance is to all 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.640 Australian citizens and making sure they have a roof over 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:18.200 their heads. 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.360 There was an Instagram post where he was absolutely talking 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.920 about housing and immigration levels the Coalitions. 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.640 Andrew Hasty says high immigration is starting to make Australians 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.120 feel like strangers in their own home. 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.520 Which echoed a famous speech from sixty years ago a 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.240 British politician in our Powell termed the rivers of Blood speech. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.439 I think calling back to rehetrick like that is as 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.000 a fairly strong thing to do, and we don't know 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.679 yet whether that's the peak of the rhetrick we're going 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.960 to hear, or whether it's just the first move and 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:55.880 it's going to become much more extreme from there. 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.720 It's often said that compulsory voting protects Australia from Trump 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.720 style politics. Do you think that holds true? Look, I have. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.040 Become more and more suspicious of this argument. I think 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.240 it makes sense when we simply look at Australia right now, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.959 we say, well, Australia hasn't quite gone down the path 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.800 of Donald Trump and authoritarian far right governments. Yet, therefore, 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.240 what is different about Australia. We say, well, compulsory voting 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.240 is different, as strong Australian electoral commission is different, Therefore 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.199 those things must be the difference. But that's really correlation, 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:34.080 not necessarily causation. And when you turn the question around 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.800 and you say, well, do we think Donald Trump or 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:41.360 somebody like him would not have risen in America if 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.560 America had compulsory voting, if America had a better American 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.280 electoral commission, Well, I don't think that's the case. I 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.320 don't think that those elements would have stopped the rise 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.040 of Donald Trump. I think what we're really seeing is 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.600 a strong reaction in America to a broken system to 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.520 assist on which inequality has been allowed to run absolutely rampant. 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.959 And in Australia we become too complacent when we think 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.200 compulsory voting is going to save us all from a 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.600 similar fate. Labor Front bencher Andrew Lee has warned that 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:18.079 within a generation we will hit American levels of inequality, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.400 and so I just can't see that if we hit 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.839 those levels of inequality, we won't see a similar reaction here. 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.760 And we should take that very seriously, especially when one 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.680 nation are already polling. It's not an election, but still 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.520 it's significant. Are already polling not in one poll, but 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.959 in a number of polls now at incredibly high levels. 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.800 That is saying something to us, at the very least 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.680 about the distrust of our major parties. And we should 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.640 remember as well that while we've been focusing on the 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.080 coalition of this discussion, public support for the two major 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:56.000 parties combined has been falling for years and years and 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.000 years now. That indicates that people think there is a 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.520 problem in the way that we are being governed. And 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.280 that suggests to me that any party that is in 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.320 government needs to think very seriously about addressing the economic 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.480 issues in this country. Yes, they can take short term 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.319 measures of attempting to bring immigration down, an attempt to 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.920 meet voters' concerns in those ways to some extent, but 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:25.080 that that is a band aid that ultimately issues like 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:26.760 housing are going to have to be addressed in a 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:27.800 very substantive way. 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.959 Sean, I'm an absolutionist when it comes to the quality 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.080 of your contribution to the show. Thank you so much 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:47.240 for your time. Thanks Daniel. Now before you go, I 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.800 wanted to let you know about an extra episode we've 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.160 released today. It's an essay I've written about the homemade 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.120 bomb that was straaten into a crowded protesters at the 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.480 Invasion day Ralliant Perth. It's about while we've heard so 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.800 little coverage on this, when there's been no shortage lately 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.239 of talk in this country about hate, where it resides, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:08.559 and how it should be named and who should be 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.719 disciplined for it. But when Ooriginal people are targeted with 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.719 an explosive device in a public square, the response barely registers. 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.960 Lives are not valued on the same scale. I hope 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.400 you'll take the time to listen to it. Seven Am 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.080 is a daily show from Solstice Media. It's made by 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:31.680 Atticus Bastow, Ari R. Richards, Christine Gate, Crystal Color, Nicole Johnston, 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:38.840 Sarah mcvee, Travis Evans, Zoonveno and me Daniel James. Our 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.360 theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.280 Envelope Portio. This has been seven Am. Thanks for listening.