S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Sunday, May 4th. Well,
S1: it was quick, about 2.5 hours after the polls had closed.
S1: The election had already been called for the incumbent labor government.
S1: But as the night went on, Anthony Albanese's win was
S1: looking like a landslide and labor increased its majority in Parliament.
S1: For the opposition, it was disastrous. Its leader, Peter Dutton,
S1: has lost his own seat in parliament and recriminations will
S1: surely be savage. To talk us through the results and
S1: what it all means, we spoke to chief political correspondent
S1: David Crowe and federal political correspondent Paul Satchell. David, you
S1: are not one to overuse an adjective, but you wrote
S1: in your piece for Saturday night that Anthony Albanese's victory
S1: was historic, stunning and extraordinary. Why do you use those words?
S2: Because it's so unusual to get a first term government
S2: increasing its majority in this way. It doesn't happen very often.
S2: I was talking to Shane Wright, our colleague, earlier, and
S2: he's told me when it last happened, and now I
S2: can't remember just because it's a blizzard of information on
S2: election night, but it's incredibly rare. The other thing, of course,
S2: is that Anthony Albanese has become the first prime minister
S2: since John Howard in 2004 to get another term as
S2: an incumbent, and that's also been too rare in the
S2: last 20 years or so. Since Kevin Rudd in 2007,
S2: we've had one term prime ministers finally getting a prime
S2: minister who serves a second term with a bit of
S2: continuity in the job, with an agenda for a second term.
S2: He's even talking about a third term to our colleague
S2: James Massola. All of these things make it a really
S2: incredible night. And bear in mind, there had been talk
S2: only months ago about or weeks ago about labor going
S2: into minority government. And here they are with this increased
S2: majority and with this mandate, when households are doing it
S2: very tough and, you know, on other grounds they might
S2: want to boot out a government when when the cost
S2: of living is so bad. So on all those fronts,
S2: it's it's really quite an incredible outcome.
S1: Yeah. I've just come back from the Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL,
S1: which is where the the Labor Party faithful gathered tonight.
S1: And Albanese just gave his speech, his victory speech. It
S1: was exactly the same stage, exactly the same venue, where
S1: he gave his victory speech in 2022, where he talked
S1: a lot about the voice, which obviously didn't get a
S1: mention tonight. What did you think of of the speech, David?
S2: I thought it was, um, one of the best speeches
S2: that he has delivered in his political life.
S3: Serving as your prime minister is the greatest honor of
S3: my life.
S2: I think it was very inclusive. He did have, I guess,
S2: that pointed reference to acknowledging Indigenous Australians, which, given Peter
S2: Dutton started this or fuelled this, this debate about the
S2: welcome to country was a very pointed reference.
S3: And I pay my respects to elders past, present and
S3: emerging today and every day.
S2: But in every other way he was gracious towards Peter Dutton.
S2: He made it so important at the start of the
S2: speech to simply thank Australians for their vote. He talked
S2: about kindness. He talked about unity, about confidence. It was
S2: a message trying to sort of lift up Australia at
S2: a time where global conditions are so hostile, really, to
S2: liberal democracies. Now, I'm not saying that he's got the
S2: answer and that there is this incredible second term agenda
S2: that's going to fix everything, because I think there are
S2: a lot of questions about that. But it was a
S2: very good speech in that way.
S1: It was very optimistic. He talked about how his mother
S1: had raised him to be an optimist and to see
S1: the best in people, and there was every reason for
S1: Australians to feel optimistic, which, as you say, is sort
S1: of against the global zeitgeist. Paul, you were in the
S1: room with the Dutton camp up in Brisbane, and you
S1: watched the opposition leader's concession speech, which I think we
S1: have to say was very gracious and refreshing, really, from him.
S1: Talk us through the night there. What was the vibe
S1: like in that room?
S4: Yeah. Well, for all the talk about comparing Dutton to Trump,
S4: some of it fair, some of it probably exaggerated. It's
S4: a great sign of our democracy that there was no,
S4: no suggestion that Dutton would ever do what Trump did
S4: and question anything about how the political process plays out.
S4: So it was gracious. He was he was, uh, he
S4: he was relatively upbeat for a guy who'd just been
S4: defeated so thoroughly. The room was quite warm when he
S4: emerged at about 930 in the W Hotel in Brisbane.
S4: He was watching upstairs with his family about 10 or
S4: 15 minutes earlier. Some of his key supporters, including his
S4: ministerial allies Steve Ciobo, Christian Porter, Michael Keenan, the campaign
S4: spokesman James Patterson entered the room with Tony Abbott as well.
S4: It was actually pretty light on for politicians. There weren't
S4: many current or former MPs there, except the ones I've named.
S4: He received a big applause when he rocked up Dutton,
S4: and then was really warmly allowed to exit the room
S4: with a long standing ovation. Well, tonight's.
S5: Not the night that we wanted for the Liberal Party
S5: or for our coalition, or indeed for our country.
S4: He's built up a lot of goodwill in the party.
S4: There are not many people on the moderate side, and
S4: certainly not on the right where he sits, who have
S4: much disdain for him. I think there was a there
S4: was a significant rump of people who just felt really
S4: sorry for a guy who they thought had given it
S4: his all, but also deep acknowledgement from even his staff
S4: and some of his close MPs who I spoke to
S4: in text and calls after, who just saw the result
S4: and realised that what they offered was totally, uh, not
S4: up to it now.
S5: We didn't do well enough during this campaign. That much
S5: is obvious tonight and I accept full responsibility for that.
S4: The campaign was poor. The policy offering was meek. Dutton
S4: proved to be someone who was by the end, the
S4: last Newspoll had him at the lowest popularity rating since
S4: Andrew Peacock in the early 90s, so he's shown himself
S4: to be one of the most deeply unpopular political party
S4: leaders in a long time. And that showed tonight.
S1: Yeah. Okay, so the recriminations on the Liberal side are
S1: going to be, um, going to be swift and interesting.
S1: What does this sort of I mean, I don't know,
S1: are we calling it a landslide? It's a sort of
S1: huge increased majority. We don't know of what magnitude yet,
S1: but a pretty interesting and big result. Is it all
S1: about Albanese's personal popularity? Is it about the labor policy offering,
S1: or is it more disillusionment with Peter Dutton and the coalition? David,
S1: what do you think?
S2: I think the Peter Dutton factor was real, and it
S2: was something that the coalition underestimated, because clearly they didn't
S2: position him better going into this if they wanted to
S2: get Australians to get to know Peter Dutton as a
S2: as a family man and so forth, they should have
S2: been doing more on that front last year. But really
S2: it was about, I think, the core offer from labor.
S2: And I think this goes back to something that I
S2: know Paul's been talking to labor people about for ages,
S2: and so have I. We all knew that labor felt
S2: they couldn't win if it was going to be about
S2: the last three years. It had to be about the
S2: forward offer. And I heard that phrase repeatedly, the forward offer.
S2: And that was about telling people, we're going to do
S2: the following things for the next three years. And that's
S2: where the liberals were, I think, complacent because labor knew
S2: exactly what they were going to do, and they figured
S2: it out late last year, and then they started doing
S2: doing it in January with more money for Medicare, which
S2: of course, Peter Dutton matched. But it was labor on
S2: the front foot saying, we are hearing you on the
S2: cost of living and we are doing the following things.
S2: Whether it was road funding or Medicare funding, the urgent
S2: care clinics and so forth, they were delivering something that
S2: helped households with their finances and that just kept going
S2: all the way through to the budget. All of those
S2: things worked. Mind you can't forget that Donald Trump was
S2: a factor because he brought this global turmoil to the
S2: Australian election. But Labour knew that it had to offer
S2: something to Australians, and it started doing that in a
S2: really disciplined way.
S4: I'd add further to that. I agree you can't understate
S4: the Trump factor, but domestic factors are also huge, and
S4: some of this will be written in our long feature
S4: story that we're writing with Matthew Nod and Natassia Chrysanthos
S4: in coming days. So I'm giving a bit away. But
S4: I think in hindsight, people will look at what Albanese
S4: developed in terms of his election strategy and Paul Erickson,
S4: the campaign boss, and realised that labor staked out the
S4: center ground at this election. They own the center ground.
S4: They pushed the Liberal Party on cost of living and
S4: a number of other just core issues on health and
S4: education and various other policy areas out to the side.
S4: And Albanese commanded the center. In late October, labor people
S4: were looking at what Trump was doing to Kamala Harris.
S4: Paul Erickson had his election strategy laid out by late
S4: October and early November, and the core of it was
S4: a cost of living argument centered on Medicare, turned into
S4: a cost of living issue to talk about healthcare every
S4: day as a mechanism to say we are tangibly making
S4: your life easier and cheaper in a cost of living crisis.
S4: They hammered that home for months. They put economics at
S4: the core of their agenda, which labor people, particularly in
S4: kind of think tank land and on the right of
S4: the Labor Party, have been calling for for years. They've said,
S4: forget talking about social justice as the core of your
S4: offering and progressivism as the core of your offering, and
S4: make economics and living standards, the core of Labor's brand.
S4: Albanese and Paul Erickson did that, and incredibly, in the
S4: polls in recent weeks, even after a huge spike in
S4: interest rates and people having been worse off over the
S4: last three years in terms of real incomes, Labour is
S4: ahead on cost of living and economic management in most polls.
S4: That's an extraordinary result, a vindication of their strategy and
S4: a massive indictment on the party that's meant to be
S4: known as the better economic manager.
S6: Do you think it was also.
S1: A rejection of Trumpism? Because we can't. I mean, you know,
S1: lots of people vote during the campaign that Donald Trump
S1: was sort of like the third person in the campaign. Obviously,
S1: he was incredibly influential in terms of the global atmosphere,
S1: but also in terms of all of the allegations that
S1: Dutton or members of Dutton's party were aping Trump or
S1: stealing from him, or wanted to bring that kind of
S1: politics to Australia. He did have a go on woke issues,
S1: so-called woke issues, particularly towards the end of the campaign.
S1: How much of this can we see as a rejection
S1: of that kind of politics?
S2: David, I think we can see the election result as
S2: a rejection of Trumpist ploys in in Australian politics, because
S2: there have been some of those and I guess Jacinta
S2: Nampijinpa price as the coalition's spokesperson for government efficiency, picking
S2: up that kind of Doge theme from the US when
S2: she said Make Australia great again, it clearly had the
S2: overtones of a Trumpist line. If that was working for
S2: the coalition, they would have had a, you know, side
S2: by side with Peter Dutton for days afterwards. They didn't.
S2: She was hidden after that. So that tells you how
S2: they saw that playing out. But also, we know from
S2: our own polling that almost two thirds of Australians see
S2: the election of Trump as a bad thing for Australia.
S2: They don't like him. And over the course of the
S2: campaign that worked in Anthony Albanese's favor. I think of
S2: Anthony Albanese now. Given this dynamic as an anti-Trump, I mean,
S2: Albanese is always talking about orderly government. He presented a safe,
S2: friendly kind of face, even though he has been on
S2: the nose for so long on the cost of living.
S2: So he was an anti-Trump.
S1: He even talked about kindness and respect very pointedly in
S1: his victory speech tonight. Paul, do you see this result
S1: as partly a rejection of that sort of anti-woke stuff
S1: that is very much associated with the Trump agenda?
S4: Partly. I'd also just say that as the Canadian election
S4: result proved Trump's erratic nature, his trashing of conservatism around
S4: the world has flipped the script in other Western countries
S4: and allowed centre left progressive leaders to become the Patriots,
S4: the ones talking about kind of nationalistic Australia first Canada
S4: first policies, which is something they've never been able to
S4: do with as much authority as the conservatives in their country,
S4: because those conservatives are now portrayed as buddies with the
S4: US president who's having a crack at all these allies.
S4: So it's it's we're in uncharted territory.
S1: Yeah. What were some of the more surprising results of
S1: the night I want to talk about? You know, David,
S1: I don't know if you've had much of a look
S1: at the Greens vote. I want to talk about Tasmania,
S1: where labor was incredibly successful. Victoria and of course, Dutton's
S1: seat of Dickson. Let's just go first to the Greens vote.
S1: Have you had much of a look at that?
S2: Yes. And it hasn't been great for the Greens. Some
S2: of the results are very close. I haven't talked to
S2: anybody about what's what they're seeing in Brisbane for instance
S2: in the Brisbane seats that is. But of course these
S2: are sort of must haves for the Greens. They did
S2: so well at the last election. Max Chandler-mather was their
S2: spokesperson on housing in Griffith. Stephen Bates in Brisbane, Elizabeth
S2: Watson-brown Brown in, uh, Ryan. They want to hold those seats,
S2: but they haven't done that. Great labor is is within
S2: sight of turning things against them. Uh, I think it's
S2: different in Melbourne, where there's concern about the labor seat
S2: of wills, but you cannot see across the board that
S2: this is a big victory for the Greens. It's been
S2: much more interesting in terms of the teal contests and
S2: in previously safe Liberal seat of Bradfield in Sydney. Nicolette
S2: Buehler has won that seat. It's a, you know, shocking
S2: defeat for the liberals and it just highlights this teal trend.
S2: So I can't say I was surprised by that because
S2: I'd been watching that seat really with a lot of interest,
S2: and I thought there was a chance that Nicolette Buehler
S2: could do it. But to see it actually happen and
S2: continue that trend is really something.
S1: What about Dixon? Paul? Um, what what happened for Peter Dutton?
S1: I mean, it's been several elections now when labor has
S1: sort of said that Dixon's in contention and that Dutton
S1: might lose his seat. There was a lot of talk
S1: of that sort of two elections ago, but this time
S1: it actually happened. It's quite stunning.
S4: Yeah, labor had been talking about this for weeks now.
S4: They've been doing big fundraising drives, saying to people around
S4: the country, donate because we think we can beat Peter Dutton.
S4: Albanese spent the first day of the campaign on, I
S4: think it's March 29th, in Dixon, and then he swung
S4: through in one of the final days. There was a
S4: lot of talk at the start of the campaign about
S4: this being an Albanese mind game. He does like political
S4: games and getting in the heads of his opponents. He
S4: at the time said he really believed it was on
S4: the on the brink of falling. Even his colleagues didn't
S4: really believe him. But there's been a huge swing against
S4: the Liberal Party across or the LNP in Queensland in
S4: seats like Bonner. There were huge swings, various other suburban
S4: seats where labor had been putting in a lot of
S4: resources into in the last year or two, particularly led
S4: by Murray Watt and Jim Chalmers, to build the brand
S4: back there and in the city of Brisbane as well.
S4: There were big swings, as we just mentioned, to the
S4: to labor from the Greens. But in terms of Dixon itself,
S4: it's hard to know about local factors. There was a
S4: new teal independent, Ali Smith, who was really heavily backed
S4: by climate 201 13.1% of the primary vote. At this
S4: stage of counting, Dutton has lost 8% of his primary.
S4: At this stage, Labor's only up two and a half,
S4: so the independent clearly caused Dutton problems. Huge amounts of
S4: money spent by labor and the climate, 200 independent and
S4: lots and lots of Labour ministers and MPs and party
S4: heavyweights swung through Dixon to get to gain momentum there.
S4: So perhaps the voters of Dixon when the when the
S4: when the heat. Really. Well I don't want to go
S4: too far there but when when they maybe really thought
S4: thought about Dutton as their candidate in a really high
S4: profile race where it actually looked like there was a
S4: chance of flipping it, maybe they saw something, something they
S4: didn't like.
S1: Yeah, I'm not sure how much people were tuned into this,
S1: but certainly he was asked, I think in the last
S1: debate if he or he was asked recently if he
S1: would be happy to have a nuclear reactor in his
S1: own electorate, and he said yes. So I don't know
S1: if that was that was something that people were tuned into.
S1: Let's just talk quickly about the coalition. Paul. Um, Peter
S1: Dutton took total responsibility for the loss. But I mean,
S1: what's your sense of what happened? Was it was it
S1: his fault? Was it was it miscommunication with the with
S1: campaign HQ? Was it the fact that he just went
S1: off piste and did his own thing and didn't listen
S1: to the party? Um, the party elders. What was it?
S4: It's it's there's so many factors that make it complex.
S4: And so it's clearly deep and structural. The problem in
S4: the party to blame any one breakdown in communication or
S4: relationship or attitude in a certain, um, cohort of his
S4: staffing unit just seems simplistic. I mean, the party the
S4: party is broken. Um, they've had three years in a
S4: cost of living crisis to develop an economic narrative, have
S4: totally failed to do so and have gone backwards on
S4: an already record low primary vote with a deeply unpopular
S4: prime minister in Scott Morrison. So it's the recriminations will
S4: be really severe. There'll be huge questions directed towards the pollster,
S4: Mike Turner at Freshwater, because there has been a sense
S4: in the party, a real sense. I don't think a
S4: fake false spin sense that their internal polling was better
S4: than the national polling and that this result would not
S4: play out. So there'll be huge questions about why that
S4: didn't play out. The strategy of not dealing in the
S4: same way as most political leaders in the past, with
S4: mainstream press throughout the term, and focusing the strategy towards
S4: two GB and Sky news, as David has written about extensively,
S4: will also come under severe question after just a quick
S4: point to finish off after the 22 result. They were
S4: in the mid 50s in terms of seats. Their primary
S4: vote was really low under Dutton for a period, but
S4: the party was galvanised by the voice referendum. It lifted
S4: them off the floor. It instilled discipline over a year
S4: or even more, which was like a long campaign within
S4: the term. And I think that in part meant that
S4: there was no period of soul searching and real examination
S4: of what the party stood for, its policy agenda, its
S4: recruitment of talent, all those things that make a healthy,
S4: vibrant political party. This result has to force that if
S4: it doesn't, it never will. I mean, Labour went through
S4: similar periods in the mid 2000 when Howard kept beating them.
S4: They had another period of of of reckoning after Bill
S4: shorten lost. So this happens to both sides of politics.
S4: But there needs to be serious, serious examination of the
S4: party and what it what it is. And there has
S4: to be over the next few months or maybe even year,
S4: a period where there's no no focus on opinion polling
S4: and just focus on how do we get ourselves to
S4: be a governing party again.
S2: The liberals have always done well when they're genuinely a
S2: broad church, to use that old phrase. That phrase is
S2: used so much because it's such a good phrase. They
S2: know that that's how they succeed. And that's not really
S2: the the best description of them right now. Well, after
S2: this result, they're like a rump. But I think Peter
S2: Dutton has been given a lot of credit for uniting
S2: the team and keeping them all together after the 2022
S2: election outcome, that defeat, and he did keep them united,
S2: but he kept them united by not making them too
S2: much of a broad church. He had a, you know,
S2: deliberately conservative, um, approach, very conservative, I think Liberal Party
S2: over the last couple of years, picking fights on culture
S2: wars and woke agendas and so forth, and maybe that
S2: wasn't the way to succeed. We now see what Australians
S2: think about it. So unity came at an incredible cost
S2: because they didn't actually have a deep think about their
S2: philosophy and their direction in the last couple of years.
S2: And really we could see that with their policy agenda
S2: because it was relatively thin and it didn't, you know,
S2: they complained about the catastrophe facing Australia, and then they
S2: came up with a bit of a damp squib on
S2: the policy front as a solution to that catastrophe. Um,
S2: they didn't seem to have the courage of their convictions
S2: on what they were really fighting for, because I think
S2: they hadn't really worked out what those convictions were.
S1: Yeah. I mean, you've got to conclude that they just
S1: they didn't do any work, really any proper work on policy.
S1: They they just they had a lot of time and,
S1: and they didn't use that time. David, you wrote in
S1: your piece tonight that everything at this election has approved
S1: the path ahead will not be easy. So you're not
S1: sort of letting Albanese off the hook? What do you
S1: mean by that, exactly?
S2: Well, I was remembering, um, an interview that we did with, um,
S2: Jim Chalmers last year. Remember this jacket where he, uh,
S2: we asked, you know, is there going to be an
S2: election spendathon. And he said no. Well, guess what? There
S2: was an election. Spendathon. Right. They spent a lot. Now
S2: they say they're improving government services. And I think Australians
S2: respond to that because they want a caring government in
S2: this global turmoil that looks after them and delivers services
S2: like Medicare. But there's been a lot of spending going on.
S2: There are no budget surpluses in the foreseeable future. The
S2: economy has low productivity, right? We used to worry about that.
S2: We used to be a nation that actually paid attention
S2: to that, paid attention to economic reform, to tax reform.
S2: Are we going to rediscover that? It could take a
S2: majority government that's safe, that's got a mandate to try
S2: and look at some of these things. It's not an
S2: easy job, but somebody's got to do it. And the
S2: time to do it is when you've got a mandate
S2: and a majority. So I think it's going to be
S2: challenging for Anthony Albanese and for Jim Chalmers, because there's
S2: so much that needs doing.
S4: If the big question for the coalition side now is
S4: how do they regenerate if they can regenerate? The big
S4: question for Albanese now is can he be bigger? Can
S4: he be bolder? Can the nature of his government change?
S4: One of his long time close friends said to me
S4: the other day that if he wins with a majority,
S4: he'll be extremely vindicated and proud of what he's just achieved.
S4: And he showed that with his emotion tonight. But he'll also,
S4: according to this person, go into what he described as
S4: legacy mode, where he'll be thinking not just about how
S4: to get another win. Although another win would be fantastic.
S4: He'll be thinking about how does he go out, having
S4: achieved big reforms now, and he'll want to do a
S4: couple of things that mark him out, not just as
S4: someone who's won two successive elections to be the first
S4: person after John Howard, but how he's done that and
S4: done big things. And he even though he's done some
S4: creditable things and he calls himself a reformer, even his
S4: colleagues think the last term was far from ideal, far
S4: from big enough. Far from long term. Enough in its thinking.
S4: So can he reach to change the GST deal and
S4: do proper tax reform? A big new social program. Who
S4: knows what that might be, but can he change the
S4: nature of the government and be bigger and bolder? Will
S4: be the big question and the big pressure point on him.
S1: I'm sure we'll gather again to talk about that in
S1: the not too distant future. It's very late. You guys
S1: have been up all day. You've done an amazing job.
S1: Thank you for coming and talking and what a fascinating result.
S1: Long live democracy.
S4: Thanks to you guys all. Bye.
S2: Thanks, Paul.
S1: Today's episode was produced by Julia Katzel. Our executive producer
S1: is Tami Mills, and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
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S1: Thank you for listening.