S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, the
S1: 2nd of May. Well, it is finally here. Tomorrow is
S1: election Day, and by tomorrow night we will have some
S1: idea of who is going to govern Australia for the
S1: next three years during this volatile and pivotal moment in
S1: global history. Today we're going to talk about the seats
S1: to watch on election night, the ones that will determine
S1: the outcome of the poll. And we'll also zoom out
S1: to the bigger picture. Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have
S1: depicted duelling visions of the Australia that they want to build.
S1: They also have sharply different leadership styles. Which one is
S1: the more appealing to voters in the current moment? Joining
S1: me to discuss all this, we have chief political correspondent
S1: David Crowe and our senior economics correspondent Shane Wright. Welcome, guys.
S2: Great to be here. It is always a pleasure to
S2: see you, Jack.
S1: Are you guys feeling tired? You must be a bit weary.
S2: The adrenaline still pumping through the body.
S1: Okay, good. I was I wasn't talking physically. I was
S1: talking more on an existential level. But but that's fine.
S1: It's good to know.
S3: The coffee covers all levels.
S1: Yeah. It does. Um, I want to start with the
S1: nerdy stuff today. The seat by seat detail. Because while
S1: we tend to focus on the grander narrative when we're,
S1: you know, sort of reporting on things at a federal level,
S1: actually election campaigns are very much fought seat by seat. David,
S1: which electorates will you be watching on election night?
S3: A lot of the city fringe electorates, because we know
S3: that that is where Peter Dutton is basically, uh, staking
S3: his future because his message to the liberals has been,
S3: we can win the outer suburban seats. Uh, I'm thinking
S3: of places like McEwen on the northern fringes of Melbourne.
S3: And one of the big factors here for the Liberal
S3: campaign is the cost of living on families in outer suburbs.
S3: They're distant from those inner city areas where, you know,
S3: there's a more progressive agenda. And some of these seats,
S3: like Wairoa on the south western fringe of Sydney around Liverpool,
S3: are seen as prime targets for Peter Dutton, especially with
S3: things like his, uh, 25 cent a litre cut to
S3: fuel excise. He gets photographed every day at a petrol
S3: station for a very good reason. That's his message to
S3: those voters.
S1: I'm also interested in Bradfield on Sydney's North Shore, because
S1: that's sort of a prime next target for the teals.
S1: Nicolette Bulla has been campaigning for that seat. She came
S1: very close to winning it last time, more or less.
S1: Some would say knocked off Paul Fletcher, the sitting liberal,
S1: because he retired for this election. But it has been
S1: reported that he retired after seeing some polling that wasn't
S1: so good for him. What do you think's going to
S1: happen there?
S3: I think that's going to be a very tough race
S3: for the Liberal Party. They've got a good candidate, Giselle Septarian.
S3: She's been a liberal sort of loyal member for many years. Um,
S3: she's a younger woman. She can present herself as as
S3: part of the future for the Liberal Party in that
S3: part of the world. There are conservative branches for the
S3: liberals in that part of the world. So I don't
S3: think that it's a, you know, it's it should be
S3: liberal territory and it should stay liberal territory. Yeah. However,
S3: Nicolette Buhler is running a very good campaign, and when
S3: I visited some of the early polling stations in Bradfield recently,
S3: I was struck by the number of volunteers that the
S3: teal campaign has got set aside, that sometimes they don't
S3: like the teal word, but I'm going to use it.
S3: I ran into some of the climate 200 operatives that
S3: I've seen in other independent campaigns, so I know that
S3: the climate 200 funding for Nicolette Buhler is considerable, so
S3: they're not to be dismissed. Ah, and Peter Dutton hasn't
S3: visited that seat during the campaign. Mhm. So that's a
S3: real live question about whether he is a net asset
S3: for Giselle or whether a liability Reliability.
S1: And Giselle, captain, as you say, is a very good,
S1: credible candidate. She presents well, but she was preselected very late.
S1: Whereas Nicolette Buhler has been calling herself the shadow member
S1: and basically has has had an electorate office up and
S1: running for the last three years.
S3: That's right. And that's I think that shows a kind
S3: of a commitment that she's having a second go. And
S3: sometimes we've seen in history it can take a couple
S3: of goes before you get elected. You've got to keep
S3: at it.
S1: Let's go to Queensland briefly because there's some really, really
S1: interesting match ups in Queensland. We've got Brisbane and we've
S1: got Griffith. Talk to us about those.
S3: Brisbane and Griffith are seen by labor as essential targets
S3: and this is totally rational. These are seats that were
S3: won by the Greens at the last election. And labor
S3: believes that they can turn them to labor. Griffith is
S3: Kevin Rudd's old seat, but it's now held by Max Chandler-mather.
S3: That's a grudge match. Okay. Max does not like Anthony Albanese.
S3: Anthony Albanese does not like Max, so there's a lot
S3: riding on that. There's a lot of personal egos at
S3: stake there. And there's also this question of whether Labor's
S3: got a good policy on housing or whether Max has
S3: won the argument because he's the housing spokesperson for the Greens.
S3: So that's a real one to watch and I can't
S3: pick that one. But I do hear from labor people
S3: that they're more confident of Brisbane. That's held by the
S3: Greens MP Stephen Bates. Labor thinks that he does not
S3: have the same kind of brand recognition that Max Chandler-mather
S3: has in the seat next door, so they think that
S3: their candidate has a pretty good chance in Brisbane. Nearby
S3: there's a there's another Brisbane seat which is called Ryan.
S3: It's a bit more outer urban. And that's where I
S3: think the liberals are hopeful of winning that from the Greens.
S3: But look, it's it's pretty hard to tell at a
S3: national level. We don't see any increase in vote for
S3: the Greens. Right. There are about 13% in primary vote terms.
S1: They're even talking about possibly dropping off a little bit
S1: because they were at a high watermark last election.
S3: But we're talking highly local contests. It's really about the
S3: character of the competing candidates and local issues. That's what
S3: really worked for Max Chandler-mather in Griffith last time. And
S3: so we can't make predictions. All we know is that
S3: those races are really ones to watch. If labor wants
S3: an increased majority, as they do, they've got to win Brisbane.
S3: I think that's essential for them and they would really
S3: like to.
S2: And they have to head off the greens in MacNamara
S2: in Melbourne and Wills in Melbourne as well, where the
S2: Greens have really heavily targeting those two inner city seats against,
S2: like Josh Byrnes, the labor member for MacNamara has been
S2: like a lightning bolt around the whole Gaza issue for
S2: some time. Yeah, and then you get into Wills again.
S2: Peter Khalil, the Labour member, has been really heavily like targeted.
S2: He's even this week I believe there were people are
S2: camped out outside his office or on top of his office,
S2: a bit more graffiti. Um.
S1: pro-Palestinian.
S2: Yeah, pro-Palestinian. Those things are really blowing up in those
S2: those tight inner seats where it's it's left versus really left,
S2: as opposed to a more traditional left versus right argument.
S1: Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? Shane, you've been working on
S1: a story this week about sort of swing swing booths
S1: within electorates. So even like when you narrow it down
S1: to the micro electorate level within an electorate, it's impossible
S1: to sort of generalise about the area. Can you tell
S1: us about that story?
S2: Yeah. For instance, like we haven't mentioned Gilmore, which is
S2: like Fiona Phillips won that seat from Andrew Constance by
S2: 373 votes at the last election.
S1: And that's the New South Wales south coast. So the
S1: lovely sort of.
S2: New South Wales south coast coming from about Kiama all
S2: the way down just south of Batemans Bay. Now right
S2: at the top is a beautiful spot called Kangaroo Valley.
S2: Bucolic might be the term. If I was in England,
S2: that'd be the term I'd use. Um, that area has
S2: been swinging towards Labour for the last two two elections,
S2: even though there had been a swing back against the
S2: Liberal Party. And you can see it's a little bit different.
S2: It's within 20 minutes of a place called Bomaderry, which
S2: has been swinging the same way as the rest of
S2: the seat. So we've got these, like we've talked, say,
S2: about McEwen on the northern outskirts of Melbourne, the suburb
S2: of Doreen. This is mortgage Belt Central. Huge big homes,
S2: people really heavily indebted. It has been swinging consistently towards
S2: the Liberal Party over the last couple of elections, even
S2: though Rob Mitchell, the local labor member, has been able
S2: to hold on. So those sorts of areas really, we're
S2: targeting into tiny bits of electorates. So it's easy to
S2: say as both parties talk about particular seats, they generalize.
S2: But even like we've looked at Bulleen, which is a
S2: suburb of the seat of Menzies, there's a split within
S2: that particular suburb, um, where there's a is an older
S2: Italian Greek population which swung nine points towards labor at
S2: the last election. Um, so you can see even within
S2: these the we talk broadly, you've talked about how we
S2: look federally, the 150 seats, how they all add up
S2: the the electorate by electorate battle. But often it can
S2: come down to Booth by booth. And that's what we've
S2: really picked up.
S3: Can I just add something about Gilmore? Because I do
S3: think that that's so important, it's so marginal. And I
S3: think on the polling we were seeing up until the campaign,
S3: people would have just assumed the liberals would win it. Um,
S3: it's a very mixed seat. When I was talking to
S3: somebody on the labor side about a recent visit down there,
S3: because I've got extended family in in that part of
S3: the world. The question to me was, you know, is
S3: my extended family New Gilmore or Old Gilmore? Old Gilmore
S3: is farming families and so forth. New Gilmore can be
S3: see changes and tree changes. And I think that's what's
S3: happening in places like Kangaroo Valley. When I went through
S3: and was staying in the area in East Nowra, for instance,
S3: that's not a that part of the world is doing
S3: it hard with the cost of living crisis. And I
S3: saw signs up for the Liberal candidate, Andrew Constance, in
S3: a low socioeconomic part of the electorate. And I think
S3: that's something that we need to remember when we see
S3: Peter Dutton talk about crime and safety. I think that
S3: resonates with people, and it's not an economic issue. They
S3: feel the cost of living crisis, but they're also worried
S3: about safety. And I think that works for the Liberal Party.
S3: I kept driving and in a farming part of the community,
S3: there were signs up for Fiona Phillips, the Labour candidate.
S3: She's a farmer's daughter from a dairy farm. I mean,
S3: this is playing with some of the stereotypes about which
S3: side of politics appeals to which part of the electorate.
S1: Look, it's absolutely fascinating because it goes to a trend
S1: that Anthony Albanese, I think, referenced in one of the debates,
S1: which is that people are much less likely now to
S1: be rusted on labor or rusted on liberal or rusted
S1: on that they they share their vote around much more easily.
S1: And there's less tribal loyalty now. It's really fascinating.
S2: I was just going to say, like, I'm interested in Wannon,
S2: which is Malcolm Fraser's old seat in the western districts
S2: of Victoria and Cowper, which to go even further back,
S2: was Earl Page's seat when he was the leader of
S2: the Country Party. Where you've got two you've got these independents.
S2: Climate independents like Dan Tehan is defending Wannon frontbencher and
S2: everyone believes he's in trouble against Alex Dyson. Over down
S2: that way. Then you head up to Cowper where you've
S2: got Pat Counihan representing the Nats in a seat that
S2: has been National Party territory forever. In a day where
S2: he's in trouble fighting off another teal, a climate tinged
S2: independent in Caz highs. And you go like we've talked
S2: about like the theory around or the whole discussion about
S2: teal independence has been particularly in the Liberal Party. It's
S2: focused on inner city traditional. Yeah. Soft a small l
S2: liberal type voters. But Kath McGowan going back away. She
S2: won Indi in rural Victoria as an independent. Independence in
S2: rural areas have a great and long storied history.
S3: And what we've seen with the Liberal Party vote is
S3: their primary vote has fallen during the campaign, not just
S3: in our surveys but in others. And if there is
S3: this weakness for the liberals, that's actually going to play
S3: into the hands of those independent candidates, and there's a
S3: lot of resources going into those campaigns. There's some published
S3: data that shows that in the seat of Monash, held
S3: by Liberal former Liberal Russell Broadbent, south eastern Victoria, just
S3: outside Melbourne, $476,000 has gone into the teal independent campaign. Now,
S3: not all the teals are declaring how much money they're
S3: getting from climate 200. But if climate 200 is putting
S3: that much money into that campaign, just imagine what they're
S3: spending elsewhere. And so there's a high level of unpredictability
S3: about whether that pays off.
S2: And we we've talked about the teals, but I think
S2: One Nation will be a discussion point on on Saturday night.
S2: How it's like our our poll is not showing a
S2: lot of change, but there's been definitely an improvement. So
S2: and this is part of the Liberal Party tactic is right.
S2: Our vote might be down in these outer suburban seats,
S2: but it may be moving towards one nation. So I
S2: think of, say, Andrew Giles seat in Scullin. I because
S2: I lived in that area growing up. John Cain, the
S2: former labor premier of Victoria. The working class neck of
S2: the woods. And they showed voters there. There was a
S2: big lift in One Nation and Clive Palmer vote at
S2: the last election. I don't think we'll be talking about
S2: how low their vote is. I think we'll be talking
S2: about how high and their preference flows out of one
S2: out of one nation. And what's Clive's trumpets, whatever that
S2: party is at the moment.
S1: Trumpet of patriots.
S3: Just refer to your text message. You'll see the name.
S1: Yeah, he'll text you in a few minutes and you
S1: can refresh your memory. Um, I want to just ask now,
S1: zooming out, focusing or trying to think about the narratives
S1: that each of the major party leaders has presented and
S1: the sort of the narrative arc or the vision for
S1: the future that Peter Dutton has presented versus Anthony Albanese.
S1: I want you guys to reflect on what those different
S1: visions are, if they've been very clear and whether or
S1: not they've been particularly sort of sharply divided.
S3: David, from Peter Dutton. It's very clearly a question mark.
S3: Do you feel better off than you were three years ago?
S3: The answer on the metrics is that households will not
S3: be feeling better off, because inflation has eroded their household finances,
S3: and wages over the three years have not kept up
S3: with that inflation. So there's pressure on households. He galvanizes
S3: the grievance.
S1: Do you think he offers a sort of a particular
S1: kind of narrative or vision for what he wants, apart
S1: from ameliorating people's bottom lines in their household budgets for
S1: what kind of Australia he wants to see or build.
S3: I think he asserts that the coalition are the better
S3: economic managers, but he asserts it as an article of faith.
S3: And I think one of the problems for his campaign
S3: has been going off message, setting up little side distraction disputes, um,
S3: working from home, not knowing the EV policy on on
S3: electric vehicles clearly enough.
S1: Welcome to country stuff.
S3: Well that especially I think, Jackie, because I think to
S3: spend some of the last week on a culture war
S3: when you could be hammering the government on the economy
S3: and what you're offering on the cost of living and
S3: a better way for households, I think is a very
S3: interesting kind of gamble. And I am really curious on
S3: Saturday night as to whether it pays off.
S1: And what about Albanese?
S3: Well, I think it's very much a message about, yes,
S3: we hear you. You're doing it tough. We have these
S3: solutions and we've started acting and we've got more to do.
S3: It's a classic political line, um, heading in the right direction,
S3: but more to do. They're not asking for too much
S3: of a pat on the back for what they've already done.
S3: Anthony Albanese is weak on the key question are households
S3: better off? He couldn't answer that clearly at the Press
S3: Club on Wednesday.
S1: Well they're not. I mean, it's incontrovertible that we're just not.
S3: But he has a list of things about the future.
S3: And this has been fundamental to the Labour campaign from
S3: the beginning. Don't just talk about the last three years.
S3: Talk about the forward. Offer what you're getting in the
S3: next three years. You're getting childcare. You're getting Medicare bulk billing,
S3: you're getting school funding, you're getting hospital funding, you're getting
S3: all these other things energy rebates and a tax cut, which,
S3: by the way, the coalition would reverse. So all those
S3: things have played into a narrative about the forward offer.
S1: So it's basically trust us. Hang in there. We're onto it. Yeah. Um, Shane,
S1: what do you think about the competing visions of both leaders?
S2: I'm thinking more in the context of previous leaders over the,
S2: over the years. So. So Peter Dutton, like you, the
S2: best opposition leader I think I've seen there's two Tony
S2: Abbott and Kevin Rudd both winning from opposition and Abbott.
S2: Abbott was yep. Absolute grievance. Absolute attack. But he did
S2: keep saying, When I'm when we're elected, if the Liberal
S2: Party is elected in 2013, there'll be people will feel
S2: confident again.
S1: He did. Yeah he did.
S2: He was talking about the confidence fairy sprinkling her pixie
S2: dust everywhere and people would feel better. And I think
S2: that's part of the missing message from from Dutton. He
S2: has played very strongly and played very well in terms
S2: of the grievance and the darkness. Um, but I think
S2: he has missed that element of Abbott that I think
S2: was really important as well, saying, right, there will be
S2: there are better days with me.
S1: And I think that's such a liberal, a Liberal Party
S1: message and it's an aspirational message. John Howard was particularly
S1: good at conveying it. It's an optimism. It's like, you know,
S1: we've got great economic times ahead. They just we just
S1: need the Liberal Party to, to manifest it. Yeah.
S2: And we've got into like the tax cut has been
S2: the missing tax cut has been really interesting. Like Peter
S2: Dutton has a tax cut. It lasts for one year.
S2: But he has not been. He has barely mentioned it.
S2: Like the people, the journos travelling with Dutton, I want
S2: to get them their health tested because of the amount
S2: of time they spend at service stations over the last
S2: five weeks, but hearing anything about tax, because as soon
S2: as he brings up, it's then why is the Liberal
S2: Party opposing tax relief straight off and repealing tax relief.
S1: Instead of pointing out that they're also offering a.
S2: Tax.
S1: Cut, whereas.
S2: Anthony Albanese, I'm actually thinking of him as John Howard
S2: in 96, as in like relaxed and comfortable because that's
S2: where Albanese he has tried to play. Look, I'm not
S2: volatile like the other bloke or that the big orange
S2: bloke over in the US. I'm calm. We are methodical.
S2: I don't know. I've lost track of the number of
S2: times he's talked about being methodical. He was mentioning it
S2: again at the Press Club this week about a cabinet
S2: process where we've got a plan for the future, but
S2: we're not going to scare the bejesus out of you.
S2: And and that is very much a Howard approach to
S2: campaigning as well. So that's that's where I like I'm
S2: an historic nerd and that's where I play into it.
S2: And I can I can see you laughing at that. Uh, Jackie. Uh,
S2: but yeah, that's that's how I, I've been feeling throughout
S2: the campaign.
S1: We we love the history nerds. We love it. Um, guys,
S1: just tell us quickly where you're both going to be
S1: on election night.
S3: Uh, in Sydney on election night, because that's where we'll
S3: be coordinating the coverage. Uh, there's a chance, if deadlines permit,
S3: that I could duck out and perhaps attend the labor event. Uh,
S3: but that's very challenging to do. It's challenging to write
S3: in real time while you've got this noise around you.
S3: I did it in 2019 when I was at the
S3: Bill shorten event in, in outer Melbourne, where, of course, uh,
S3: they lost. They were crying. They were they were crying.
S3: They really were crying into their beer. Right. Um, but
S3: it was hard to write. When you've got the noise
S3: and the drama all around.
S1: Too much emotion.
S2: I'll be in the Sydney office with Matt Wade calling seats.
S1: It'll be so fun. I'm going to be at the
S1: elbow event, which will be somewhere in, um, the inner
S1: west of Sydney. We don't know where yet, and so
S1: I'll be the person writing in the corner on their laptop.
S3: They're always big moments of drama, and we've got colleagues
S3: who will be in Brisbane for Peter Dutton's night, which
S3: is going to be interesting to see what the room's like.
S3: You never know what you're going to get, because I
S3: think if the coalition win more than ten seats, gain
S3: more than ten seats, there'll be some on their side
S3: who think that that's a good outcome. When things are
S3: looking pretty tough for them right now. So a lot
S3: of the questions are about how many seats does it
S3: take for the Liberals and Nationals to hold their heads
S3: up high on Saturday night?
S1: And the and the recriminations and the bloodbath will happen
S1: very quickly. I predict it's going to be such an
S1: interesting night. Guys, I think we're going to be doing
S1: a podcast super late on Saturday night, which will be
S1: out on Sunday morning, just so everyone knows. Thanks, fellas.
S1: See you Saturday.
S3: Thank you.
S2: Thank you Jackie.
S1: Today's episode was produced by Tammy Mills with technical assistance
S1: from Josh towers. And Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
S1: To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop,
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S1: Jacqueline Maley. Thank you for listening.