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Speaker 1: Election day tomorrow in Australia. A lot have already voted,

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Speaker 1: of course, so Elbow and Dutton have been chasing diminishing

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Speaker 1: returns for well over a week now. I gave you

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Speaker 1: the latest polling earlier on the program that shows potentially

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Speaker 1: a route and Labor returned with the majority. But what

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Speaker 1: does Bruce Hawker think? He's a political commentator? Of course,

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Speaker 1: former advisor to Kevin Rudd, and Bruce is with us

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Speaker 1: in the early hours of an Australian morning. Bruce, morning

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Speaker 1: to you, Good morning mate, appreciate you time very much.

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Speaker 1: The U GUB numbers I refer to suggest not just

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Speaker 1: a win for Albanezy, but a significant one that he'll

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Speaker 1: get about eighty four seats out of the one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty you need seventy six for a majority. Do

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Speaker 1: you believe it?

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Speaker 2: I think it's a bit high. That's my gut feeling

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Speaker 2: about it. I think a majority victory for Labor, which

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Speaker 2: would be more than seventy five seats out of one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty, is a possibility, but I think it

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Speaker 2: would be a bear majority that they would win if

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Speaker 2: they do get across the line. But that would be

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Speaker 2: a remarkable result, given what the polls were saying just

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Speaker 2: a few months ago.

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Speaker 1: How do you explain? And once again I'm looking from

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Speaker 1: the outside. But for a while the had done looked

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Speaker 1: like a genuine contender. A spill looked potentially on Albanezy

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Speaker 1: calls the election. The polls shift, they keep shifting, and

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Speaker 1: the whole thing's changed.

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Speaker 2: Why Look, there are a few things that happened. One

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Speaker 2: was that interest rates came down. That allowed labor to

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Speaker 2: change their narrative to say, look, it's the worst of

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Speaker 2: it's over. Now we can start planning for the future.

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Speaker 2: And Dutton presented something of a risky sort of a persona,

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Speaker 2: particularly in light of what was happening in the US

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Speaker 2: with Trump. A lot of his comments, a lot of

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Speaker 2: his policies were really Trumpish in their attitude, and he

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Speaker 2: presented himself very much in that mold, and I think

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Speaker 2: people started to think, oh, we'd rather have the devil

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Speaker 2: we know.

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Speaker 1: So the same Canadian thing that worked against Polyev's working again.

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Speaker 2: Yes, except not as extremely but and we'll have to

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Speaker 2: wait and see, of course how it goes. But I

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Speaker 2: think that as a major factor in the election, we

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Speaker 2: had a cyclone that never really developed into being the

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Speaker 2: threat that it was going to be, which allowed the

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister to be very prime ministerial. And as you know, Mike,

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Speaker 2: you know, once she rot in that role as sort

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Speaker 2: of the protector in chief, then that changes people's attitude

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Speaker 2: somewhat as well. But I think it was more the

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Speaker 2: risk they felt that Dutton presented. A lot of his

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Speaker 2: policies were underdone. He's gone for a nuclear policy which

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Speaker 2: a lot of people just thought, well, why do we

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Speaker 2: need that? And a lot of his costings were pretty rubbery.

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Speaker 2: So all those things combined to come together at exactly

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Speaker 2: the right time. I think for.

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Speaker 1: Labor, what's your sense of what, let's say Elbow wins,

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Speaker 1: what's your sense of a second term is a term

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Speaker 1: of regret from an Australian voter who didn't have a

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Speaker 1: real choice, or has Elbow got the means to do

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Speaker 1: something spectacular for Australia and go on to be a

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Speaker 1: John Howard Esk type figure.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a really interesting question. And I normally, you know,

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Speaker 2: if you're in a minority is they may well be

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Speaker 2: that's a bad place for governments to be. But I

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Speaker 2: suspect there'll be so many people on the cross benches

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Speaker 2: that they'll be able to govern without too much difficulty.

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Speaker 2: If interest rates continue to drop as they look like

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Speaker 2: they're going to, largely because of problems on the international front.

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Speaker 2: I think that will be good for Labor. They've got

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Speaker 2: a pretty good team in place there that are quite experienced.

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Speaker 2: They did get diverted by the Voice, which is the

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Speaker 2: referendum mission about giving Aboriginal representation of kind, and I

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Speaker 2: don't think they're going to be going down that path again.

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Speaker 2: So I think they've learnt a lot. There's a really

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Speaker 2: good chance. I think that we could be in for

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Speaker 2: a pretty solid second term by Labor. Not to say

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Speaker 2: that that's a foregone conclusion, of course, but I think

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Speaker 2: they're probably if they get across the line here, particularly

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Speaker 2: if they have a majority, then that places them in

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Speaker 2: a good position to look pretty solid in their second term.

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Speaker 1: One of the arguments was that Hans's going to preference

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Speaker 1: the coalition, She's surging that helps the coalition. Do you

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Speaker 1: give that any weight?

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Speaker 2: I do. I give that some weight because with our

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Speaker 2: preferential system of voting, most of those votes are going

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Speaker 2: to come back to the opposition. So I suspect that

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Speaker 2: their two party preferred vote, not their primary vote, will

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Speaker 2: actually be a bit better than it looks like it's

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Speaker 2: going to be at the moment. Pardon me, because a

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Speaker 2: lot of the polling just goes on the basis of

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Speaker 2: what happened in the last election how preferences were distributed,

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Speaker 2: so that may artificially reduce the opposition's votes, but I

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Speaker 2: don't think it's going to be enough for them to

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Speaker 2: be in a position in the former government because essentially

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Speaker 2: we have these Teal seats in Australia, in these more

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Speaker 2: wealthy beachside suburbs which are socially progressive fiscally conservative. They're

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Speaker 2: going to re elect pretty much all of those Teal candidates.

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Speaker 2: That sort of represents something of a split in the

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Speaker 2: Liberal Party that I don't think somebody with the policies

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Speaker 2: that Peter Dutton has is going to be able to mend.

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Speaker 1: If Dutton gets done, is he done for or not?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's another really good question. I suspect that he

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Speaker 2: probably is done for and it'll be interesting to see

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Speaker 2: on the night if Labor wins, and clearly in wins,

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Speaker 2: whether Dutton are one holds his seat of Dixon in Brisbane,

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Speaker 2: which is marginal He's always seems to be going to

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Speaker 2: lose his seat, but he always manages to hold on

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Speaker 2: to it. He's a pretty good local campaigner, whether he

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Speaker 2: taps the mat or says I'm going to throw my

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Speaker 2: hat in the ring for another go as opposition leader.

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Speaker 2: I think his planned, definitely that was to try to

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Speaker 2: win as many seats as he could in the outer

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Speaker 2: suburban seats of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and that may still

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Speaker 2: help him, but I think it's going to be much

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Speaker 2: harder for him and I wouldn't be surprised if he

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Speaker 2: doesn't continue in the role of opposition leader if they

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Speaker 2: get badly defeated.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your expertise very much, Bruce goo Oldemorrow. Appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Bruce Hawker, who is the well former advisor to Keivin

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Speaker 1: Rudd political commentator these days, just quickly on that pole

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Speaker 1: that you go poll. Eighty four seats is what they're projecting.

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Speaker 1: It's an outlying pole. They argue that it's a big poll,

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Speaker 1: it's a pole of polls. Or are thirty five one

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five people interviewed for it. It's done

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Speaker 1: over an entire month between one April and twenty nine April,

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Speaker 1: hence the weight it's given to it. But they are

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Speaker 1: claiming labor eighty four seats. They need seventy six for

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Speaker 1: a majority. Most likely outcome for the coalition reduced to

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Speaker 1: forty seven seats, lowest percentage since nineteen forty six. As

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Speaker 1: Bruce said, all sitting independents are expected to retain their seats,

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Speaker 1: some liberals from heavyweight liberals, including shadow ministers, are expected

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Speaker 1: to lose. As many as three are expected to lose

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Speaker 1: their seats, so it's going to be an interesting night tomorrows.

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