Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Dahlias.
Speaker 1: Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,
Speaker 2: the first of May.
Speaker 1: I'm Zara Sidler, I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2: Well, we are officially at the point to end of
Speaker 2: the election campaign.
Speaker 1: Wowie.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many times I'm going to say
Speaker 2: that this week, but hey we're here. In a matter
Speaker 2: of days, we're going to know which party is formed
Speaker 2: government and who the next Leader of Australia will be
Speaker 2: and so on today's episode, I thought it would be
Speaker 2: helpful to give a bit of a lowdown on who
Speaker 2: the two people lying for the top.
Speaker 3: Job actually are.
Speaker 2: You've heard their names many times before, Anthony Albertezi and
Speaker 2: Peter Dudden, from their time before Parliament to what they've
Speaker 2: pushed for inside of Canberra. We're going to take you
Speaker 2: through everything you need to know before the weekend.
Speaker 1: All right, I think this is going to be a
Speaker 1: really helpful one for a lot of listeners today. Before
Speaker 1: we explain who the two leaders are, I think we
Speaker 1: should talk through the fact that these are not names
Speaker 1: that are necessarily going to appear on the ballots of
Speaker 1: most people's voting cards this weekend. There's an important difference
Speaker 1: between who the potential future leader is versus who we
Speaker 1: vote for on ballot day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I do think this is a good place to
Speaker 2: start because I think sometimes we look at the US
Speaker 2: and we think that we do things very similarly, but
Speaker 2: when it comes to voting, it's very, very different. So
Speaker 2: when we go to vote here in Australia, as you
Speaker 2: just said, unless you live in two electorates Graindler in
Speaker 2: Sydney or Dixon in Queensland, you're not actually directly voting
Speaker 2: for Anthony Alberenezi or Peter Dudden. Instead, you're voting for
Speaker 2: who you want to send to Canberra to represent your
Speaker 2: local electorate. So, for example, if you're in the seat
Speaker 2: of one and say in Victoria, yeah, you're going to
Speaker 2: vote for who you believe should represent one in Parliament.
Speaker 2: That's not going to be Anthony Albanesi, and that's not
Speaker 2: going to be Peter Dudden. You're gonna have a choice
Speaker 2: between a Liberal candidate. So that seat's currently held by
Speaker 2: a Liberal candidate Dantean exactly, but he is being challenged
Speaker 2: by a bunch of other candidates for example, an independent
Speaker 2: candidate in Alex Dyson, a Labor candidate, a Greens candidate.
Speaker 2: I won't keep saying the way candidate. You understand what
Speaker 2: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And if the name Alex Dyson sounds familiar to you,
Speaker 1: that's because he is a former Triple j presenter.
Speaker 2: He is, so he has decided to make the venture
Speaker 2: into independent politics. And so that was just an example
Speaker 2: of one of the seats and some of the names
Speaker 2: that you might see. And so, as we've spoken about
Speaker 2: on this podcast before, the way that government is formed
Speaker 2: is that whichever of the major parties reach seventy six
Speaker 2: seats of the available one hundred and fifty seats in
Speaker 2: the House, that's the party that forms government. And so
Speaker 2: the leader of that party then goes on to become
Speaker 2: the prime minister.
Speaker 1: So while not every ballot will have Anthony Albanesi or
Speaker 1: Peter Dutton's name on it, there will be representatives of
Speaker 1: the major parties on those ballots.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha. So now that we understand how the House
Speaker 1: of Reps forms government and how a leader becomes prime minister,
Speaker 1: let's talk about those two leadership options. We have Anthony Albanesi,
Speaker 1: who is, of course the current sitting Prime minister, the
Speaker 1: leader of the Labor Party, and Peter Dutton the opposition leader,
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party leader. Let's start with Anthony Albanesi. First,
Speaker 1: simple questions are but I'm sure a complex answer, who
Speaker 1: is albo?
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, a small question there.
Speaker 2: But as you said, Anthony Albanesi has been our prime
Speaker 2: minister since he won the twenty twenty two federal election.
Speaker 2: But he is by no means a new faith when
Speaker 2: it comes to politics.
Speaker 3: So if we start way back at.
Speaker 2: The beginning of the Anthony Albanesi story, he was born
Speaker 2: in Sydney in nineteen sixty three, so that makes him
Speaker 2: sixty two. As he regularly discusses and as has informed
Speaker 2: a lot of his politics, Albanize was raised by his
Speaker 2: single mother in public housing. When he was born, he
Speaker 2: understood his father to have passed away. He found out
Speaker 2: later in life that that was not the case, and
Speaker 2: there are lots of kind of podcasts and stories about
Speaker 2: meeting his father later in life, but we'll leave that
Speaker 2: for a separate discussion. Anthony Albernezi was the first person
Speaker 2: in his family to finish school and then the first
Speaker 2: to attend university. He ended up completing Bachelor of Economics
Speaker 2: at the University of Sydney and he became involved with
Speaker 2: the Labor Party very early on. He actually joined the
Speaker 2: party while he was still at school. Wow, So he
Speaker 2: is like when you talk about lifelong party members, that
Speaker 2: is Anthony alban He's a career Labor man, seriously, and
Speaker 2: I mean he's also a career politician basically. So he
Speaker 2: left university and went on to work in the party.
Speaker 2: He worked as a research officer as a party official,
Speaker 2: and then he worked as a staffer or an advisor
Speaker 2: to Bob Carr, who was a former premier. And that
Speaker 2: was all before he decided that it was time to
Speaker 2: run for the seat of Grangler, so his own seat
Speaker 2: in parliament in nineteen ninety six, so before I was born.
Speaker 2: That's how long he's been in parliament. Anthony Alberanezi was
Speaker 2: elected as the Federal Member for Grainsler and at the time,
Speaker 2: which is interesting, he was elected as the youngest member
Speaker 2: of Parliament.
Speaker 3: That is fascinating.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people don't realize how long
Speaker 1: he's been there.
Speaker 3: Thirty years.
Speaker 2: I mean both of them have been there for ages.
Speaker 2: So I was looking back at his first speech. We
Speaker 2: used to call them maiden speeches, but that term's kind
Speaker 2: of been thrown out a bit. Now we'll just refer
Speaker 2: to it as his first speech. And I think that
Speaker 2: first speeches are a really helpful way of understanding why
Speaker 2: someone goes into politics in the first place. Yeah, what's
Speaker 2: really driving them, what they want to achieve.
Speaker 1: They often act as a bit of an opportunity for
Speaker 1: that person to tell the country what they stand for,
Speaker 1: what motivated them to want to be in public service.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot you can learn from someone from.
Speaker 2: That address, definitely, And I mean it's crazy to think
Speaker 2: that it was decades ago now, but I'll read a
Speaker 2: little bit of it. Anthony Albanize said on the floor
Speaker 2: of the Parliament, I will be satisfied if I can
Speaker 2: be remembered as someone who will stand up for the
Speaker 2: interests of my electorate, for working class people, for the
Speaker 2: labor movement, and for our progressive advancement as a nation
Speaker 2: into the next century.
Speaker 3: Of course, he was speaking in the last.
Speaker 1: Century, very nineties child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so during his very long career in parliament,
Speaker 2: Albanizi has held a number of portfolios and shadow portfolios,
Speaker 2: so he became a senior minister during the running Gillard years.
Speaker 2: He served as the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and
Speaker 2: then later as Deputy Prime Minister under Kevin Rudd. But
Speaker 2: then Labor lost power and the Coalition won successive elections
Speaker 2: and so Labor wasn't in power for nearly a decade,
Speaker 2: and so during that time Anthony alban Easy was understood
Speaker 2: to kind of been working up the ranks. And when
Speaker 2: Labor lost the twenty nineteen election, which was a big
Speaker 2: shock if people remember.
Speaker 1: When Bill Shorten lost to Scott Morrison.
Speaker 3: Exactly and no one was expecting it.
Speaker 2: And so when Labor lost, Bill Shorten stepped down and
Speaker 2: that is when Anthony Alberizi became the leader of the
Speaker 2: Labor Party, and we all know he went on to
Speaker 2: lead the party to victory at the twenty twenty two election,
Speaker 2: and at that election kind of similar to a first
Speaker 2: speech in Parliament, it's interesting to look back at what
Speaker 2: the priorities he set out in his first speech or
Speaker 2: his victory speech after becoming Prime minister was, because it's
Speaker 2: like kind of different to what we're talking about this election.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly different. And I think the big standout moment
Speaker 1: from that speech that many of us will remember is
Speaker 1: the referendum exactly.
Speaker 2: So Anthony Alberzi got up and basically the first sentence,
Speaker 2: almost out of his mouth, was that he was going
Speaker 2: to implement the ull statement from the heart in full.
Speaker 2: Since that time, we've gone to a referendum that failed,
Speaker 2: but that was certainly one of the big policy promises
Speaker 2: from the Albaneze government at that time. His basic premise
Speaker 2: for or his basic promise I guess to the electorate
Speaker 2: was no one held back and no one left behind.
Speaker 2: So that set out a bit of what Anthony Abereneze
Speaker 2: wanted to.
Speaker 3: Do with his three years in power.
Speaker 2: He wanted to take significant action on climate change and
Speaker 2: he wanted to in his own words, build an economy
Speaker 2: that works for people and not the other way around.
Speaker 2: Obviously needs to be said that a lot has changed
Speaker 2: in those three years, a lot of external factors, also
Speaker 2: a lot of internal domestic matters that have shifted since.
Speaker 2: And so this time around we are looking, as we've
Speaker 2: spoken on podcasts this week, at quite different policy platforms
Speaker 2: than the last time around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course the mood is very different to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two when we were coming out of COVID
Speaker 1: out of the pandemic. In that recovery phase, there was
Speaker 1: that sort of sense of uncertainty or disbelief of is
Speaker 1: it really over? Are we really moving on now? And
Speaker 1: then of course, you know, the cost of living crisis
Speaker 1: in the meantime has well and truly set in and
Speaker 1: that's dominated the campaigning on both sides absolutely this election.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting though to hear those focuses of
Speaker 1: Albanese's career from you know, nineteen ninety six right through
Speaker 1: to the last election. He did beat Scott Morrison in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and after Morrison lost, Peter Dutton became
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party's leader. So he has been leading the
Speaker 1: opposition since twenty twenty two. What do we need to
Speaker 1: know about Dutton?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: So, Peter Dudden was born in nineteen seventy in Brisbane,
Speaker 2: and similar to Albanesi, Peter Dunnan became politically involved at
Speaker 2: a really early age. So he joined the Young Liberals
Speaker 2: at the sprightly age of eighteen. It was only a
Speaker 2: year later, at the age of nineteen, that Peter dudd
Speaker 2: first ran for parliament.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was not even thinking about parliament when I
Speaker 1: was nineteen.
Speaker 3: We were very different nineteen year olds.
Speaker 2: But clearly both of the choices for leader have long
Speaker 2: had these political aspirations. It wasn't something that came to
Speaker 2: them later in life, but rather certainly fostered early on.
Speaker 2: So it dudn't ran for parliament at the age of nineteen.
Speaker 2: He contested a state seat. So he contested a seat
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighty nine Queensland state election, but that
Speaker 2: was a safe labor seat and he ended up losing.
Speaker 2: And so when he was unsuccessful at that election, he
Speaker 2: kind of pivoted a bit. He went on to study
Speaker 2: a Bachelor of Business, but then he went part time
Speaker 2: to study when he joined the police force. And I'd
Speaker 2: say as much as Anthony Albernesi's narrative revolves around his
Speaker 2: childhood and growing up with a single mother in public housing.
Speaker 1: Working class boy from Marrickville.
Speaker 2: Exactly, that narrative has been very strong, and the narrative
Speaker 2: of Peter Dudden and his experiences as a policeman, I'd
Speaker 2: say are equally as strong.
Speaker 3: And a number of his policies.
Speaker 1: I think if listeners don't know a lot about Peter Dutton,
Speaker 1: what they do know is that he was a cop once.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So he served as a Queensland Police officer for just
Speaker 2: under a decade, so for nine years. During that time
Speaker 2: he worked in a drug squad in Brisbane and then
Speaker 2: he worked later with this sex offenders squad. And I
Speaker 2: think it's probably that latter experience that has come to
Speaker 2: the fore a lot. He often talks about the unspeakable
Speaker 2: things that he saw during his time in the police
Speaker 2: force and how that drives him to want to protect
Speaker 2: specifically women and girls. Peter Dudden ended up leaving the
Speaker 2: police force in nineteen ninety nine. He was at that
Speaker 2: point a detective senior constable, but he departed the police force.
Speaker 2: He then went on to join his father's business that
Speaker 2: was around like kind of converting property into child's care facilities.
Speaker 3: So he worked in that for a bit.
Speaker 2: But then in two thousand and one his political aspirations
Speaker 2: came swinging back and to Dudden contested the seat of
Speaker 2: Dixon in Queensland and he won, starting his parliamentary career
Speaker 2: at the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: Interesting that both Dutton and Albanzi had dabbled in state
Speaker 1: politics or started around state politics for advising, advising, and
Speaker 1: then their first big political gigs were on the federal stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really interesting and I think goes to
Speaker 2: a kind of class of people who have spent a
Speaker 2: long time in and around politics. I think there are
Speaker 2: kind of two categories of politicians, those that had very
Speaker 2: different careers and those that have kind of always been
Speaker 2: aligned with party politics. And so I just want to
Speaker 2: go back to Dudden really quickly, because, like we spoke
Speaker 2: about Anthony Albanesi's first speech to Parliament, Dudden's was equally
Speaker 2: telling about his priorities and what was really driving him
Speaker 2: at the time, and he highlighted how his work as
Speaker 2: a policeman.
Speaker 3: Had shaped his worldview.
Speaker 2: He said, and I quote, I often say to people
Speaker 2: that as a police officer, I've seen the best and
Speaker 2: the worst that society has to offer. I've seen the
Speaker 2: wonderful kind nature of people willing to offer any assistance
Speaker 2: to those in their worst hour. And I've seen the
Speaker 2: sickening behavior displayed by people who frankly barely justify their
Speaker 2: existence in our sometimes over tolerance society. In that same speech,
Speaker 2: he went on to say to me, the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: was a party founded in many ways on the principles
Speaker 2: of individualism, and reward for achievement. It goes without saying,
Speaker 2: of course, that these are principles from which I have
Speaker 2: benefited and always defended with great conviction. And I think
Speaker 2: that that was a really interesting quote to pull out
Speaker 2: because there's so much talk in the kind of political
Speaker 2: sphere about what type of liberal Dudden is and whether
Speaker 2: Anthony Abeneze is the right type of labor man. But
Speaker 2: these sorts of quotes really go to the heart of
Speaker 2: how they interpret, yeah, their party's values. And so for
Speaker 2: Peter Dudden, we're talking here about small government, we're talking
Speaker 2: about the free market, and that is clearly what he
Speaker 2: believes to be the way the country should be run.
Speaker 1: I was going to say the retoric of both of
Speaker 1: their first speeches in parliament. You know, even though we're
Speaker 1: talking about the late nineties and two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: these quotes could be them today. Really, so as much
Speaker 1: as the world around them has changed and they have changed,
Speaker 1: their kind of moral compass or their political focus hasn't
Speaker 1: really shifted that far away. None of these quotes are
Speaker 1: that surprising.
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all.
Speaker 2: And I'll just really quickly jump through the rest of
Speaker 2: Dudden's parliamentary careers, so he held key government positions throughout
Speaker 2: the kind of last decade or so. He was Home
Speaker 2: Affairs Minister. I think that's probably where people first became
Speaker 2: familiar at least kind of on a national stage with
Speaker 2: Peter Dudden.
Speaker 1: That was during a heightened period of illegal immigration, the
Speaker 1: stop the Boats era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and so he became the face really of
Speaker 2: border security. And then later with Scott Morrison, Dudden alongside
Speaker 2: being Home Affairs Minister, it was at one point also
Speaker 2: the Minister for Health, the Minister for Sport and the
Speaker 2: Minister for Defense.
Speaker 3: So he's really tried his hand a lot of different
Speaker 3: portfolios there.
Speaker 2: Prior to winning the leadership in twenty twenty two, Dudden
Speaker 2: had contested the leadership of the Liberal Party before, but
Speaker 2: he hadn't been successful. So people might remember during the
Speaker 2: Turnbull years there was a time where there was a
Speaker 2: bit of unrest in the party.
Speaker 1: We'll put it that way, delicately, put Zarah.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and Peter Dunnen put his name for it
Speaker 2: or put his hand up to run during a leadership spill.
Speaker 2: He wasn't successful at that time. Scott Morrison went on
Speaker 2: to become Prime Minister, but then when Scott Morrison lost
Speaker 2: the election, Peter Duddaen was elected as leader unopposed, and
Speaker 2: so that brings us to today. He's hoping to win
Speaker 2: the election and to become the next Prime Minister of Australia.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we've got these two mainstays of the alien
Speaker 1: political landscape with quite different stories, but there's also a
Speaker 1: lot in common there. They've both spent time as leader
Speaker 1: of the opposition, they've both been in federal Parliament for decades,
Speaker 1: and they're both vying for the same job. But before
Speaker 1: we go on Zara, regardless of who wins, it will
Speaker 1: be a big deal. Whatever the result is on Saturday,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a significant one. Yeah, can you
Speaker 1: just explain why?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: So, if Peter Dudden pulls off a victory this weekend
Speaker 2: and becomes Prime Minister, he will become the first opposition
Speaker 2: leader to unseat a first term government since nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: That's nearly one hundred years, so many years.
Speaker 3: So let me just unpack that.
Speaker 2: So, Anthony Albanezi was elected last election, his government, the
Speaker 2: Labor Government, has served one term so far. If Dudden
Speaker 2: is able to win on Saturday, that will mean that
Speaker 2: labor doesn't get a second term, and that it's the
Speaker 2: first time that that's happened since nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a trend that we see throughout
Speaker 1: polling all around the world that the incumbent government, as
Speaker 1: in the government that's serving at the time of the election,
Speaker 1: voters anecdotally will favor what they know, the kind of
Speaker 1: rhetoric of if people are apathetic, they might think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: better the devil.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's been such an interesting time in global politics
Speaker 2: because for a long time that was believed to be
Speaker 2: the case, and incumbents did have this kind of advantage.
Speaker 2: But last year we saw a bunch of incumbents, and
Speaker 2: specifically kind of moderate or progressive incumbents.
Speaker 3: All lose in a row.
Speaker 2: But then we had the Canadian election just a couple
Speaker 2: of days ago, where the incumbent government was once again restored,
Speaker 2: and so there is a lot of chatter out there
Speaker 2: about whether or not the US election has actually flipped that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that perhaps we are now going to go back to,
Speaker 2: as you said, that incumbency advantage. I've just said the
Speaker 2: word incumbency like I like it's in one sentence.
Speaker 1: But to the heart of what you're saying is that
Speaker 1: I guess trends have changed, but more than ever this
Speaker 1: year we find ourselves in more uncharted territory basically on climates.
Speaker 2: Of changing, and anyone that knows a trend is making
Speaker 2: it up, but just on the idea of the kind
Speaker 2: of historic moment that we're in.
Speaker 3: It's not just going to be historic.
Speaker 2: If Peter Dudden is successful, If Anthony Albernizi is successful,
Speaker 2: he will become the first prime minister to win two
Speaker 2: elections in a row since John Howard in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four.
Speaker 4: These two facts, these two starts, are bonkers because we're
Speaker 4: saying that a first term government hasn't lost its crack
Speaker 4: at a second term in nearly one hundred years.
Speaker 1: But a leader of a party hasn't led as prime
Speaker 1: minister for two terms since two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: And that is, of course, because we have had so
Speaker 2: many changes in leadership since that all happened. It has
Speaker 2: become a lot harder to unseat a leader. Those leadership
Speaker 2: spills you might have noticed, haven't happened for a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's because both parties have said, like enough, we must
Speaker 2: not have this again.
Speaker 3: So it is harder.
Speaker 2: But that means that, yeah, for the last twenty odd years,
Speaker 2: that's that's been the case. And so if Anthony Albanezi wins,
Speaker 2: he's going to be the first one to do it,
Speaker 2: a kind of double whammy since John Howard.
Speaker 1: Whatever happens, it's history in the making, we're.
Speaker 3: Going to be talking about it no matter what.
Speaker 1: It's exciting. I'm sure there's you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: fatigue setting in for people out there every day through
Speaker 1: there's only a couple of exactly every corner you turn,
Speaker 1: every page that you scrolled past, every TV as you see,
Speaker 1: it's a lot.
Speaker 3: Sce you receive in an unsolicited sense.
Speaker 1: And wonder where on earth did they get kay number.
Speaker 1: But it's exciting to have these little tea bits to
Speaker 1: kind of look forward to and remembering the kind of
Speaker 1: historical moments that come with any kind of democratic election.
Speaker 2: Exactly couldn't have put a better I'm Zara, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for taking us through that.
Speaker 1: It was really really helpful and interesting.
Speaker 2: Thank you and thank you for joining us for another
Speaker 2: episode of The Daily Os. We've got one more day
Speaker 2: of the working week before the election. Make sure you
Speaker 2: are sending any friend who's saying I'm not political these
Speaker 2: podcasts because everyone needs to vote and therefore they need
Speaker 2: to be informed. We'll be back later today with the headlines,
Speaker 2: but until then, have a great day. My name is
Speaker 2: Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcutin woman
Speaker 2: from Gadighl country. The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast
Speaker 2: is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and
Speaker 2: pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
Speaker 2: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
Speaker 2: both past and present.