Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. The
Speaker 1: Liberal Party is locked in a very public power struggle.
Speaker 1: The coalition has broken apart, and one nation is on
Speaker 1: the rise. What's emerging isn't just a shift in support.
Speaker 1: It's something deeper, a realignment of the conservative side of politics,
Speaker 1: with broader ramifications for Australian politics that we're only beginning
Speaker 1: to understand. Today. Political columnist and former Labor advisor Sean
Speaker 1: Kelly on what's breaking inside conservative politics, what it means
Speaker 1: for the government and what comes next. It's Saturday, January
Speaker 1: thirty one. Sean always good to see. This week, Andrew
Speaker 1: Hasty and Angus Taylor meant in a leafy album suburb
Speaker 1: to talk about who might challenge for the leadership.
Speaker 2: Andrew Hasty and Angus Taylor have met face to face,
Speaker 2: flanked by senior members of Susan Lee's front bench. Our
Speaker 2: political reporter Ruben Spargo is live with me in the
Speaker 2: studio and the meeting occurs just hours before a memorial
Speaker 2: for former MP Katie Allen, ye Angus Taylor and Andrew.
Speaker 1: Yesterday, Andrew Hasty announced he wouldn't challenge because he doesn't
Speaker 1: have enough support for now. So what does it say
Speaker 1: about where the Liberal Party is at that these two
Speaker 1: were the two men putting their hands up.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, firstly, it suggests what we've known for
Speaker 3: a long time, which is that Susan Lee was never
Speaker 3: going to be given a real chance to lead the party,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that she stood up to the Nationals,
Speaker 3: which is what all Liberals in fact have been saying
Speaker 3: is exactly what she should have done. So despite the
Speaker 3: fact she did apparently the right thing, in the eyes
Speaker 3: of the Liberals, she's still under a men's pressure. And
Speaker 3: really this has been the case ever since she took
Speaker 3: the job. There was a sense in large parts of
Speaker 3: the party that this was never going to be a
Speaker 3: long term proposition. That's a difficult spot for the Liberals
Speaker 3: because of course she is a female leader. There is
Speaker 3: a sense that the party has a problem with women
Speaker 3: and this is certainly not going to help them with that.
Speaker 3: The other thing that is worth noting about the contest
Speaker 3: between Angus Taylor and Andrew Hasty is that there's a
Speaker 3: little bit of a kind of symbolic split there, and
Speaker 3: the divide is between an older version of the Liberal
Speaker 3: Party kind of John Howard version of the Liberal Party,
Speaker 3: and I should say this, I think is Angus Taylor's
Speaker 3: to some extent self serving framing of the contest, but
Speaker 3: nonetheless there is some truth to it. It's that kind
Speaker 3: of older style of Liberal with a conservative economic approach.
Speaker 4: Deficits are up, spending is up, taxes are up. But
Speaker 4: the one thing that he is down and collapsed is
Speaker 4: Australian standard of living that's fallen more than ever before
Speaker 4: any history, more than any of our.
Speaker 3: Andrew Hasty representing the new direction of the Liberal Party
Speaker 3: position further to the right, very conservative, very conservative on
Speaker 3: social issues, really a kind of cultural war liberal.
Speaker 5: We have a problem with radical Islamic theology. And I
Speaker 5: think one of the areas that we really need to
Speaker 5: look at is immigration. And numbers are one thing, but
Speaker 5: I think who we bring into our country is really important.
Speaker 3: But also, as some other people have pointed out, I
Speaker 3: think there is a much more significant rift opening up
Speaker 3: over exactly the party's relationship to its history and the
Speaker 3: party's relationship to economics and the current economic model which
Speaker 3: has really governed Australia for the last few decades.
Speaker 1: We'll keep it on that one of the un folds,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about the Nationals. They're about to have
Speaker 1: a spill themselves, with one backbencher challenging for the leadership
Speaker 1: because he says they face political oblivion if they don't
Speaker 1: get back together with the Liberal Party. Is he writer,
Speaker 1: the national is basically done if that doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: Yes, certainly, that's what we're seeing in the polling. In fact,
Speaker 3: according to Newspoll, one Nation is polling ahead of the
Speaker 3: entire coalition, not just the Nationals. But that certainly means
Speaker 3: they're likely to be very competitive with the Nationals in
Speaker 3: some seats if an election were held right now. So
Speaker 3: the Nationals see themselves in this contest with one Nation,
Speaker 3: and that is driving a lot of their attempts to
Speaker 3: differentiate themselves from the Liberals. Arguably it's driven this split
Speaker 3: within the coalition. But the problem for the Nationals, while
Speaker 3: trying to differentiate themselves from one Nation, or rather trying
Speaker 3: to differentiate themselves from the Liberals and compete with one Nation,
Speaker 3: they're forgotten that their largest advantage over one Nation is
Speaker 3: that they have been a party of government in the coalition.
Speaker 3: They could deliver change, they could deliver funding to their electorates.
Speaker 3: If they're not in a coalition, that advantage vanishes, and
Speaker 3: suddenly they simply compete with one nation on how well
Speaker 3: they appeal to voters on their issues. And the difficulty
Speaker 3: for the Nationals here is that so much of politics
Speaker 3: has become about grievance, so much of politics has become
Speaker 3: about polarization and identity and indicating that you're on one
Speaker 3: team or another, and in that contest, to go further
Speaker 3: to the right, to indicate that you are an absolutist
Speaker 3: in certain ultra conservative ways. One nation can always do
Speaker 3: better than the nationals, or certainly it has historically, and
Speaker 3: so it's hard to see exactly what the Nationals can
Speaker 3: gain in the long term from this split.
Speaker 1: Long the term, Sean, what does the rupture on the
Speaker 1: right of politics in this country mean for our politics
Speaker 1: more broadly from left to right? How does this reshape
Speaker 1: the political landscape in this country?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean probably the dominant effect is that it
Speaker 3: has every chance of meaning that just isn't a viable
Speaker 3: opposition in the near future. Now I'm not saying that's
Speaker 3: necessarily the case. Anything can change in politics, but the
Speaker 3: current environment, and it's been this case for a while,
Speaker 3: really is that the Liberal Party, the Coalition is not
Speaker 3: providing a strong opposition. That means there isn't a lot
Speaker 3: of pressure on labor, and that means that Anthony Albaneasi
Speaker 3: is much closer to his professed goal of making labor
Speaker 3: the natural party of government.
Speaker 6: What we're seeing is real indulgence from what used to
Speaker 6: be called the coalition, but from people who simply don't
Speaker 6: like each other. And if you can't govern yourselves, I
Speaker 6: don't see how you can be an alternative government of
Speaker 6: the country.
Speaker 3: Is that a good thing? Lots of people, you know,
Speaker 3: lots of labor people would of course say yes. Part
Speaker 3: of the answer to whether that is a good thing
Speaker 3: comes in whether you think the Labor Party is doing enough.
Speaker 3: And I think there is always an argument that a
Speaker 3: country benefits when you have a strong government and a
Speaker 3: strong opposition. That actually, whatever your political beliefs, you need
Speaker 3: an opposition which is taking it up to the government
Speaker 3: in certain ways, which is holding the government accountable certain ways,
Speaker 3: and we certainly don't have that at the moment. I
Speaker 3: think that is an issue for the country overall.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Has one nation's popularity peaked sean one nation
Speaker 1: is reaping the benefits of this shift right now, So
Speaker 1: why is that? What are the conditions that allow one
Speaker 1: nation to thrive as they are at the moment.
Speaker 3: Well, well, one of them arguably is coalition chaos, but
Speaker 3: there are also real structural forces which drive support for
Speaker 3: one nation. David mar wrote a quarterly essay about Paul
Speaker 3: in House in One Nation ten years ago, and he
Speaker 3: identified a few causes. Nostalgia was one, concerned for law
Speaker 3: and order was another. But there were two really big ones,
Speaker 3: and they're not very surprising. One is being anti immigration.
Speaker 3: Some of that can be antipathy towards migrants, some of
Speaker 3: it might be racism. Some of it is racism, yeah.
Speaker 3: And then the other is distrust of government. And what
Speaker 3: we've seen over recent years is rises in both of
Speaker 3: those things. We know, distrust of government, distrust of institutions
Speaker 3: has been on a rising trend line for quite some time,
Speaker 3: you know, some variations, but that's been the overall direction
Speaker 3: of travel. Migration. Meanwhile, and this is interesting and I
Speaker 3: think quite disturbing. Ten years ago, one third of Australian
Speaker 3: said that migration was too high. It is now over
Speaker 3: half of us who say migration numbers are too high.
Speaker 3: Now you could say that some of that is particularly
Speaker 3: of this moment, and that is because migration numbers were
Speaker 3: particularly high after COVID. But it meant that retric on
Speaker 3: the Coalition side really amped up about migration and of
Speaker 3: course within one nation as well, and it meant that
Speaker 3: labor as well. We're talking about bringing down migration numbers. Now,
Speaker 3: the truth is we do rely on migration in this country.
Speaker 3: We rely on skilled migration in this country. We know
Speaker 3: that we have a number of skilled shortages and we
Speaker 3: are going to continue to rely on skilled migration for
Speaker 3: a very long time to come. But you do have
Speaker 3: the parties, the major parties united really in talking about
Speaker 3: a general aim of bringing migration down since those years,
Speaker 3: and of course that tends to amplify that message out
Speaker 3: to voters as well. That is tied to another issue.
Speaker 3: It is tied to the economy and very specifically to housing,
Speaker 3: and you can see really strong efforts by Andrew Hasty
Speaker 3: in particular to link these issues with quite dramatic rhetoric.
Speaker 5: Now Labour talk about how housing supply crisis, but this
Speaker 5: is a housing demand crisis driven by unsustainable immigration. It's
Speaker 5: that simple, and Deputy Speaker, we must act that overseas
Speaker 5: migration must come down. Our first allegiance is to all
Speaker 5: Australian citizens and making sure they have a roof over
Speaker 5: their heads.
Speaker 3: There was an Instagram post where he was absolutely talking
Speaker 3: about housing and immigration levels the Coalitions.
Speaker 2: Andrew Hasty says high immigration is starting to make Australians
Speaker 2: feel like strangers in their own home.
Speaker 3: Which echoed a famous speech from sixty years ago a
Speaker 3: British politician in our Powell termed the rivers of Blood speech.
Speaker 3: I think calling back to rehetrick like that is as
Speaker 3: a fairly strong thing to do, and we don't know
Speaker 3: yet whether that's the peak of the rhetrick we're going
Speaker 3: to hear, or whether it's just the first move and
Speaker 3: it's going to become much more extreme from there.
Speaker 1: It's often said that compulsory voting protects Australia from Trump
Speaker 1: style politics. Do you think that holds true? Look, I have.
Speaker 3: Become more and more suspicious of this argument. I think
Speaker 3: it makes sense when we simply look at Australia right now,
Speaker 3: we say, well, Australia hasn't quite gone down the path
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump and authoritarian far right governments. Yet, therefore,
Speaker 3: what is different about Australia. We say, well, compulsory voting
Speaker 3: is different, as strong Australian electoral commission is different, Therefore
Speaker 3: those things must be the difference. But that's really correlation,
Speaker 3: not necessarily causation. And when you turn the question around
Speaker 3: and you say, well, do we think Donald Trump or
Speaker 3: somebody like him would not have risen in America if
Speaker 3: America had compulsory voting, if America had a better American
Speaker 3: electoral commission, Well, I don't think that's the case. I
Speaker 3: don't think that those elements would have stopped the rise
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump. I think what we're really seeing is
Speaker 3: a strong reaction in America to a broken system to
Speaker 3: assist on which inequality has been allowed to run absolutely rampant.
Speaker 3: And in Australia we become too complacent when we think
Speaker 3: compulsory voting is going to save us all from a
Speaker 3: similar fate. Labor Front bencher Andrew Lee has warned that
Speaker 3: within a generation we will hit American levels of inequality,
Speaker 3: and so I just can't see that if we hit
Speaker 3: those levels of inequality, we won't see a similar reaction here.
Speaker 3: And we should take that very seriously, especially when one
Speaker 3: nation are already polling. It's not an election, but still
Speaker 3: it's significant. Are already polling not in one poll, but
Speaker 3: in a number of polls now at incredibly high levels.
Speaker 3: That is saying something to us, at the very least
Speaker 3: about the distrust of our major parties. And we should
Speaker 3: remember as well that while we've been focusing on the
Speaker 3: coalition of this discussion, public support for the two major
Speaker 3: parties combined has been falling for years and years and
Speaker 3: years now. That indicates that people think there is a
Speaker 3: problem in the way that we are being governed. And
Speaker 3: that suggests to me that any party that is in
Speaker 3: government needs to think very seriously about addressing the economic
Speaker 3: issues in this country. Yes, they can take short term
Speaker 3: measures of attempting to bring immigration down, an attempt to
Speaker 3: meet voters' concerns in those ways to some extent, but
Speaker 3: that that is a band aid that ultimately issues like
Speaker 3: housing are going to have to be addressed in a
Speaker 3: very substantive way.
Speaker 1: Sean, I'm an absolutionist when it comes to the quality
Speaker 1: of your contribution to the show. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for your time. Thanks Daniel. Now before you go, I
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know about an extra episode we've
Speaker 1: released today. It's an essay I've written about the homemade
Speaker 1: bomb that was straaten into a crowded protesters at the
Speaker 1: Invasion day Ralliant Perth. It's about while we've heard so
Speaker 1: little coverage on this, when there's been no shortage lately
Speaker 1: of talk in this country about hate, where it resides,
Speaker 1: and how it should be named and who should be
Speaker 1: disciplined for it. But when Ooriginal people are targeted with
Speaker 1: an explosive device in a public square, the response barely registers.
Speaker 1: Lives are not valued on the same scale. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll take the time to listen to it. Seven Am
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Speaker 1: Sarah mcvee, Travis Evans, Zoonveno and me Daniel James. Our
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