November 6, 2025 • 33 mins
It’s been a rather torrid week for the Coalition, with yet more messy fighting over whether it will dump its commitment to Australia achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
This was followed by controversial comments by former frontbencher Andrew Hastie on late-term abortions.
Today’s guest is Senator Jane Hume, a Liberal moderate, joining chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal and host Jacqueline Maley.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:02):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Well, we are
coming to the end of a very torrid week for
the coalition, with yet more messy infighting over whether or
not it's going to dump its commitment to Australia achieving
net zero emissions by 2050. Opposition leader Sussan Ley has
(00:22):
been under an enormous amount of pressure. As usual, we
have our political correspondent Paul Chuckle, joining me from Canberra. Hi, Paul.
S2 (00:34):
Hi, Jack.
S1 (00:35):
And against that backdrop, the guests that Paul and I
have this week is a very timely guest. It is
Senator Jane Hume, liberal moderate and we are told a
long time listener of the podcast. So the rumour is true, Jane.
S3 (00:45):
They are true, Jack. I'm afraid I am an addict. Which, uh. But,
you know, take it as a compliment. I really enjoy
listening to you.
S1 (00:52):
As the highest of compliments. That's great.
S2 (00:54):
That's the point of panellist.
S3 (00:56):
Oh, ouch. You can't do that. That's like picking your
favorite child.
S1 (01:00):
No, we won't ask you that, Jane. Okay, let's just
assume for a moment that everyone listening to this podcast
has been hiding under a rock or, I don't know,
on a beach in Byron Bay all week and they
haven't heard anything about politics. What exactly is going on
in the Liberal Party?
S3 (01:13):
Ah, just in the Liberal Party or in Parliament, because
it's been a big week in Parliament all round. I mean,
there's a lot of things that are being discussed, whether
it be in the Senate or whether it be in
the House of Representatives. And right now, that environment protection
reform bill is going through being rammed through the House
of Representatives. So, you know, I don't want anyone to
think that there is only ever one thing going on
(01:34):
at a time in Parliament House, and that parties only
talk to themselves about themselves. That's not at all true.
That said, there has been some significant shifts in policy
positions within the Liberal Party and indeed the broader coalition.
This week. The National Party came out on the weekend
with their policy around net zero.
S4 (01:55):
I'm proud to say that our party room has got
to unanimous position of scrapping net zero commitments by 2050. I.
A little while ago informed the opposition leader, Sussan Ley,
of the National Party's decision to scrap net zero by 2050.
This is about bringing common sense back to climate and
energy policy.
S3 (02:15):
And now the Liberal Party, which has been working on
its energy and emissions policy for some time, is going
to come together and put some stakes in the ground.
And then the coalition, both the National Party and the
Liberal Party come together, find some compromises for a position
that we can take forward to the next election.
S2 (02:32):
Did they just totally gazump you the Nats?
S3 (02:34):
Well, no. No, I wouldn't say that. They gazumped us.
We kind of knew it was coming. They were very organised,
much more organised, I think, than we anticipated. There was
a lot of research that had gone into the work
that they had done. They had a website ready to
go almost the moment that they announced their position. So
I suppose, did that leave the liberals a little flat footed? Yes.
(02:55):
I don't think we'd plan for our own website. However,
we have been doing so much work behind the scenes.
One of the roles that I have is the co-convener
of a coalition policy committee group. Now that group allows
all coalition members, whatever their positions, to come together to
discuss policy issues. We've met about a dozen times, I suppose,
(03:16):
or so on issues around the Australian economy, whether it
be tax or budget issues or superannuation or housing. But
we've also met on energy. All of these things have
been really important.
S2 (03:26):
But the Nats. The Nats are actually developing like they
put out a policy paper that had a bunch of
actual thought through research policies. There's nothing like that on
your side.
S3 (03:35):
Well, I wouldn't go that far. There has actually been
an awful lot of work that's been done by Dan Tehan,
who obviously is a liberal. He's also the relevant shadow minister,
and that will be part of the Liberal Party's response.
S1 (03:47):
Jane. It just feels like it's gone on for a
long time. This is not an issue that's come up
overnight out of nowhere. I mean, it's been central to
Australia's politics for well over a decade. So, I mean,
from an outside perspective, it is like, what's the hold
up here? I mean, I know that you've got a
you've got an official review process sort of in place,
(04:07):
and that process apparently hasn't finished, but it doesn't seem
like anyone within the party has seen much of a
policy from that net zero review process. And from the outside, frankly,
it does look a bit like it's just an avoidance measure,
like it's just a process that is there to avoid
the issue, which nobody wants to grasp.
S3 (04:24):
I wouldn't I wouldn't say that, jacki. I mean, there
are two issues here. One, we're less than six months
out from an election. I think we've just hit six
months from an election. And it's unusual for an opposition
to come out with a hard and fast policy two
and a half years before the next election. Things change,
things move, and and we should be able to be
nimble and be flexible. But of course, the other aspect is,
(04:45):
and this is where the urgency comes from, energy is
the economy. And at the moment our economy is stalling
and in fact going backwards because our energy prices are
so high. So this week we saw, for instance, the
news about Tomago, uh, Australia's biggest aluminium smelter that is
has gone into receivership or doesn't think it's going to
(05:07):
be able to continue production. That's a real concern. But
it's not the first. No that's not. I want to
use a better expression, the canary in the coal mine.
We've already had, um, Oceana glass. We've seen Incitec pivot.
We've seen, um, there's a plastics company whose name escapes me.
I think it was, um, kinos.
S2 (05:26):
I think it was called.
S3 (05:27):
Yeah. I mean, all of these companies are going down.
There's actually 1400 manufacturing firms that have gone under just
under a Labour government.
S1 (05:37):
So one.
S3 (05:37):
Of.
S1 (05:37):
The.
S3 (05:37):
Drivers of that is very high energy prices. So getting
this right is really important.
S1 (05:42):
But but as I mean that kind of proves the
point doesn't it. All of these all of these huge
energy burning industries are going under are struggling with international
competition and with energy prices because of the messy, expensive
transition that the economy must and is and will continue
to go through. You know that better than anyone. You're
one of the three members of the Liberal Party room
(06:05):
who are actually willing to put on record that they
support net zero by 2050. So the transition is happening.
Companies are hurting, jobs are being lost. So doesn't that
make the policy more urgent or the need for a
policy from you guys more urgent?
S3 (06:18):
All right. I'm going to correct you first and foremost. Yes.
In the newspaper, there were only three of us that
came out and said we support a net zero position.
There are plenty more than that. Sometimes we get these
calls saying, what do you think of this? You know,
this is a survey. What do you think? And if
people don't respond, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have
a position.
S1 (06:34):
This is just just so our readers know that the
News Corp tabloids had a sort of piece this week,
basically going through every member of the party room and
saying whether or not they were on record as being
pro net zero, and Jane Hume was pro net zero.
But as she's saying, maybe not everyone took the call
from the Telegraph or got back to the Telegraph reporter.
S3 (06:52):
But Netzero itself is has turned into this sort of
totemic phrase, this sort of binary issue. Are you pro
net zero or anti net zero? Which I think is
just crazy. Everybody wants to reduce emissions. Net zero has
somehow become this euphemism for whether you believe in man
made climate change or not, and whether you think that
a government should do something about it. We have already
(07:13):
signed up to the Paris Agreement, and even the National
Party have said that they want to maintain our Paris commitments.
Paris commitments means that each country sort of chooses its
own adventure to reducing emissions, agrees that emissions have to
come down, but they may set their own targets. And
this is what we've said now. Other countries have said,
you know, China has said net zero by 2060. India
(07:35):
has said by 2070, um, but it's all about managing
that pathway. I think what we can all agree on
in the Liberal Party is that the pathway that Labour
have chosen simply is not working. And Australians economy and
their households and businesses are paying an enormous price for that.
The 2030 targets don't look like they're going to be met.
There's problems with the renewables rollout and everything that comes
(07:59):
with that. And now the 2035 targets we think are
not just unachievable, but they're entirely unworkable. That's what we
should be focusing on. Labor's failures here to deliver on
their own commitments and the cost to Australian businesses.
S1 (08:14):
Australian families. I want to I mean, I guess I
want to take a step back and you're talking about
the nitty gritty of the targets. And I agree with
you that the net zero sort of become this totemic thing.
It's become a totemic thing, though, because the coalition over many,
many electoral cycles has sort of shown the electorate that
it's not particularly convinced about reaching net zero emissions. And
it's not particularly convinced or convincing in its commitment to
(08:37):
the Paris Agreement. Isn't this a question of sincerity? I mean,
whether or not the voters actually think you're sincere? Because
I can say that I've got an aspiration to travel
to India. I'd love to go to India one day,
but I haven't booked a ticket and I haven't booked,
you know, travel insurance and I haven't, you know, made
childcare arrangements for my kid like that shows that I'm
not particularly sincere in that, in that aspiration, doesn't it?
S3 (09:00):
I think you sound perfectly sincere in your aspiration. It
just means that you're not necessarily committed to the pathway
to getting to India just yet.
S2 (09:09):
I can see an eat, pray, love style trip for Jackie.
S1 (09:11):
Oh, yes. Yes, please.
S3 (09:13):
Um, look, I mean, I think we should wear the
Liberal Party. Should wear its environmental credentials on its sleeve.
You know, we're the party that established Kakadu National Park.
We established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Reserve. This is
something that's really important to us. And there is something
to be said for conservation and environment being a really
(09:34):
important principle to conservatives. There's actually a reason why conservation
and conservative, uh, have a very similar origins. But at
the same time, this particular issue, this idea of reducing
emissions by a particular time frame and doing it through
a renewables only approach is something that we have rejected
(09:55):
for some time or been sceptical of for some time.
And it's not just the Liberal Party. Dare I say
you put out there in any form of polling, any
form of survey, do you believe that we should reach
net zero, that we should reduce emissions? And everyone says, yeah, absolutely.
And then when you say and how much you personally
are prepared to pay for it in terms of higher
electricity prices or higher grocery prices or a lower standard
(10:17):
of living, and everyone goes, oh, hang on, I'm not
entirely sure that that's the way I want to get there.
I want to get there, but I want someone else
to pay for it. And that, I think, is the
sort of the realist, you know, the realistic approach to
making sure that we meet our commitments, reduce our emissions,
you know, have a better environment for the next generation.
But at the same time, we don't turn the lights
(10:39):
out on the way.
S2 (10:40):
Just on this on the net zero tagline, I find it.
It's incredible how cosmetic and superficial this debate has become. Internally,
you're arguing over the set of words, not over the
mechanisms to get to emissions reduction. You talk about the
kind of purity test that's come of this. To me,
the most convincing argument I've heard from some in your
party to get rid of net zero is that it's
(11:00):
become a toxic word to some segment of the voter base.
It has come to mean different things, and they're they
just won't abide it. And that's that's a big portion
of your party base. And that you guys can use
different words to reach a green future at a slower
pace than labor. Still, try and make the forceful argument
to the public that you are serious about emissions reduction,
(11:21):
but using different mechanisms, using different frames, and making different
political arguments. Would you be comfortable if the party landed
with some commitment to the Paris Agreement without the term
net zero done in the liberal way, do you think
you can win that argument?
S3 (11:36):
I think that the phrase net zero has become synonymous
with the Paris Agreement because Paris has said that getting
to net zero emissions is how we keep global temperatures lower. Yeah,
that's part of the the the 2050 framework. If we
(11:57):
abandon the phrase net zero. I think for so many people,
that will mean that they think that we have abandoned
a commitment to reduce emissions. And let's remember, not everybody
is engaged as politics, in politics, as me or or
the two of you or the people that are listening
to this podcast. They would see one as a euphemism
for another. I hate that idea that people would assume
(12:21):
that somehow the Liberal Party has abandoned its commitments to
either lower emissions or to improving the environment.
S2 (12:28):
So keep the term if if the leader drops the
term and goes with the right and with the Nats
and where they're pushing her. view, the moderates and the
small center right actually put her in the job. Andrew
Bragg and Tim Wilson and you in recent days have
made super strong comments about Susan Lee's leadership. What would
happen to her position as leader if she were to
(12:49):
go in that direction? Would there be frontbench resignations? Would
you guys push for a split with the nationals? Where
do these threats actually lead to?
S3 (12:56):
I think not only is that catastrophizing, but it is
also beyond hypothetical. We have a lot of steps in
this process to get through before those kinds of decisions
need to be made. Susan Lee has said from the
outset that she wants us to meet our commitments. She
wants to lower emissions, but not at any cost. That
(13:17):
was her phrase, and I think that most Australians would
agree with that. The question is, how do we get there?
And that's exactly what we're going to land on.
S1 (13:25):
I would say the question is what what does at
any cost mean? I mean, when is the Liberal Party
going to actually come out and say, this is the
cost base that we will accept and this is the
cost that we will not accept. Well, this is a
good question. There's no clarity around any of that.
S3 (13:39):
100% agree with you on this one. To be honest,
I think that reducing emissions and the cost to get
there should be business as usual. It should be part
of our budgeting process. You know, we have aspirations about
where we want to see debt get to in a
decade's time when we want to see a budget come
(14:00):
back into surplus, what we want inflation to be, what
we want productivity to grow at, what we want the
economy to grow. This is part of what we do
reducing emissions. And I think energy supply and reliability of
the grid should also be part of that process. I'm
actually I've been advocating in my party room to include
emissions reductions and energy supply mix and price as part
(14:25):
of a budget process, a separate budget book, even. And
that way you could also list all the measures and
the costs of getting there, because there are so many
things in our you know, when we go through Senate
estimates that are dedicated to reducing emissions, whether it's the
Clean Energy Finance Corporation or Arena or the National Reconstruction
Fund or the Emissions Reduction Fund, there's the climate Change authority,
(14:49):
the net zero authority. I mean, there's.
S1 (14:50):
Just is that something.
S3 (14:51):
That.
S1 (14:52):
Is that is that something that's going to be part
of the liberal policy then? Because what you're talking about
sounds a lot like a net zero aspiration or a
net zero target. And maybe there's a budget paper there
that is like, you know, this is the cost of
emissions in this budget year.
S3 (15:04):
I would love to see that, because I think that
that would hold governments to account. And it would also
be entirely transparent. So you could say, well, this is
where we want to go, but this is what's going
to cost to get there. That way, each government each
year gets to make adjustments accordingly.
S1 (15:18):
And they're accountable.
S3 (15:19):
Exactly right for the decisions that they make. Look, this
is the story that really got to me. I was
pushing my trolley through Woolworths the other day, and I
saw up on the wall a big sign that said
Woolworths is committed to net zero by 2050. And we're
going to do this by electrifying our trucks. And I thought,
oh well good on Woolworths for doing that. I'm probably
paying slightly higher grocery prices for that. But you know
(15:42):
okay I'm prepared to do that. And then I was
getting ready for the estimates week and I was reading about, um,
investments that the Cefc had made. And on my heavens,
there was $6 million from the CFC that had gone
to Woolworths to electrify their trucks. And then I dug
a little further. Arena had given $19 million to Woolworths
to electrify their trucks. So that's $25 million of taxpayer
(16:06):
money that had gone to a private company. Sorry, a
publicly listed company that, let's face it, uh, made about
$1.6 billion in underlying profit last year. So to.
S1 (16:17):
Get to net zero, I.
S3 (16:18):
Think why is this? I don't want to pay. My
taxes are higher, my energy bills are higher, and my
grocery prices are higher for this objective. And Woolworths is
taking the credit.
S1 (16:28):
Sure. But I mean, they're not the only big company
that's making a large profit, that's taking, you know, a
taxpayer subsidy. And the Tomago smelter that you've just talked about,
that corporate.
S3 (16:36):
Welfare side, I think is something that really irks people.
So if you said, all right, well, we want to
have a target to get to a net zero future,
but there must be, you know, a reduction in that
corporate welfare program. There must be investment in new technologies
that can bring us there, rather than just throwing money
at proven technology subsidies for proven technologies. There's got to
(16:59):
be better social licence and community consultation for the rollout
of the renewables and transmission lines across regional and rural communities,
which is just so contentious. There are better ways of
doing this. Um, and Labor's way isn't.
S2 (17:16):
We're so in some ways so in the weeds of
a policy development process for a party that's just lost
an election. It's probably two elections away from getting back
into government. It's quite bizarre in some ways how focused
we are on an opposition policy. Do you ever step
back and think, why aren't we spending more of our
time thinking about the structural issues in the party? Your
(17:37):
2022 election review how you get your values messaging, campaign strategies,
communication right? Do you find this just a bit paralyzing
and not the main game? Are you despairing about the
existential issues at the moment or?
S3 (17:50):
Well, I despaired about the existential issues in 2022. And
that document that you're referring to, the review into the
election loss in 2022 that I was a co-author of
with Brian Loughnane, had some three groups of recommendations for
the parliamentary team, but also for the organisational wing and
the professional wing. So the membership and the the campaign
(18:14):
guys really, uh, and for the parliamentary team, funnily enough,
there was really only one recommendation, which was to stay
united and disciplined. Now we absolutely did that in the
last Parliament, but unfortunately it came at a cost. And
that cost was we didn't hold up our end of
the bargain with the obligation to dissent. Uh, any dissent
(18:36):
was seen as disunity. That's a bad thing. Now, maybe
we've gone too far the other way in this Parliament.
Everybody said, I'm not doing that again. Next time something
doesn't sit right with me, I'm going to speak up.
And there's a lot of people speaking up right now.
S1 (18:51):
Yeah. Do you, um, do you think, Jane, that Susan
Lee is the right person to lead the party through
this extremely difficult period in terms of political disunity, but
also policy development?
S3 (19:03):
Well, Susan is a very calm person. She's got a,
you know, the right temperament. I think for this it's
not an easy thing to navigate. Uh, energy policy, uh,
has taken down leaders before, as we know. Uh, but,
you know, I think she's stuck to her guns, and
I admire her for that. Her messaging hasn't changed. Her
messaging hasn't changed.
S1 (19:23):
She's very inscrutable, though. I mean, she she hasn't said
what her personal position is on net zero. In fact,
I think voters don't really know her very well at all. What?
What are your impressions of her? You know her personally.
What she really likes.
S3 (19:35):
Uh, well, I don't know her particularly well, so I
don't want to, you know, make claims to that. Uh, but, look,
I do think she has been upfront with her party
and with the public that she wants to make sure
that all voices are heard, that opinions are sought and considered.
S1 (19:56):
Jane, why do you think that, um, Liberal Party has
lost the trust of so many female voters?
S3 (20:01):
Uh, look, it's a really tough one to say because
prior to 2001, more women in Australia voted liberal than labor. Um,
there's a couple of reasons why I think that is
no longer the case. And some of them are sort
of structural. Uh, you know, one of them is the
fact that the labor movement has become far more feminized.
(20:23):
So women are now seeing themselves reflected in the labor
movement more than they did in the past, when it
was all a very sort of blokey thing. The labor movement,
the union movement was very blokey. And as the union
movement has become more feminized, so too has the Labor Party.
So I think that that is something that we probably underestimate.
(20:46):
The other problem, of course, is it becomes, um, a
little bit of homosocial reproduction, which for the uninitiated is no,
not something that some of my big word. It is. Well,
it's two big words, actually. It's not something that Eric
Abetz would naturally vote against. That's not it. It's, uh,
it actually just means that we tend to replicate ourselves.
(21:06):
So I think you find if the Labor Party has
attracted more, more female votes, then the Liberal Party naturally
seeks votes from a different demographic. And that becomes a
self-perpetuating thing. Uh, which is a big mistake because let's
face it, you can't leave out 50% of the population
in your policy development. And, you know, I think that
(21:28):
perhaps we might have done that. Now, I should say, too,
that while Labour have done a much better job, I
think it's speaking to women than the Liberal Party have.
They have a very different philosophy. It's almost like they
want to compensate women for being women as opposed to
empower them. And I think.
S2 (21:45):
Do you need to do do you need to do
a big set piece apology on the work from home
thing to kill that issue off and move forward?
S3 (21:51):
Work from home is such a fraught issue and you know,
you can see it playing out now. I've actually tried
to keep my head low on this one because this
policy was so badly misrepresented. It was originally about Canberra
public servants, 60% of whom are working from home and
making it really difficult to get stuff done up here.
(22:12):
Everything from graduate programs and mentoring programs to meetings with
stakeholders weren't going ahead. Or if they did go ahead
like you'd fly your team up from Melbourne. Walk into
a department and be met with a screen with everybody
coming up on the screen. So look, that's what it
was trying to amend. Now, uh, labor really. You know,
(22:33):
they ran rings around us on this one and somehow
created this giant scare campaign that it was going to
go wider than that, that it was about the private sector,
not the public sector. And we even said from the
outset it no existing arrangements would change and flexible work
would always remain. It just had to be something that
was negotiated with your with your manager rather than a
(22:54):
right to demand it.
S2 (22:55):
There's no doubt labor absolutely weaponised it and made false
claims about it. But do you acknowledge in hindsight now time,
so much time has passed that your speech that you
gave sent a kind of anti work from home signal
across the economy, which could have been interpreted by private
sector employees as something that might eventually, if it exists
in the public sector, be reflected in ebas across the community.
(23:17):
And did you do well enough to explain that and
tamp it down? To me? It felt at the time,
as on your part and others in the party, that
there was a stubbornness to acknowledge how this had flowed
into the society. And I think Keith Wolahan has effectively
said it cost him his seat.
S3 (23:31):
Yeah. Look, I wouldn't agree with Keith on that. In fact,
if you look at the, um, the way that the
votes fell in his seat, that probably isn't true. But that's,
you know, by the by, um, look, to be honest,
this is a policy that we probably should have not
released in a, in an election campaign. Um, it was
(23:52):
plagued with probably bad messaging, bad timing, um, a really
good campaign from labor, if you remember rightly, like the
week after was the cyclone or hurricane in Queensland. So
everybody's conversation, everybody sort of started looking elsewhere. No policies
were announced. This one had the opportunity to sort of
be hijacked quietly behind the scenes acknowledge.
S1 (24:14):
And I mean, it's good to hear you sort of
talk about it and to remind us as well, what
the original intent of the policy was. But do you
do you think that it just sort of ended up
giving a message that the Liberal Party didn't understand working
parents and their juggle, and they didn't understand the sort
of the new situation or the contemporary reality of most
working families where both parents are working, juggling kids, trying
(24:37):
to get to work, trying to be good employees, trying
to be good parents, and they're trying to do it all.
And working from home is a really, really important and
useful tool in trying to manage that juggle.
S3 (24:46):
I think that we never denied any of that, but
the messaging that was coming out from labor, which like,
you know, let's be honest, it was kind of being
amplified by the media as well, didn't do us any
favors in that regard. Trying to get the messaging right
was difficult. I think Peter stumbled. I mean, and look,
people stumble on messages during campaigns all the time. Peter
(25:08):
stumbled on some messaging there. He said, well, women can
always job share. That was, you know, that was.
S1 (25:13):
A.
S3 (25:13):
That was a, that was a that was a flat
footed comment. And even he would say it was a
flat footed comment. Um, so of course there's things that
you would, you know, you would rethink. But to be honest,
I think the backflip of the policy was probably almost
as damaging, perhaps more damaging than explaining the policy appropriate.
S2 (25:32):
Shouldn't have backflipped on it.
S3 (25:33):
Yeah. Look, other people will decide. Look, hey, there's an
election review coming out. I'm absolutely certain that this will
come up. Um, but to be honest, if you want
to say. Is that the reason why we lost the election? No, no, that.
S2 (25:44):
Was what was.
S5 (25:45):
Let's let's let's.
S1 (25:46):
Move on because we don't have a lot of time left.
And there's a few other things I want to step through.
Andrew Hastie's been in the news a lot. He's often
talked about as a leadership contender. Now, you and also
Susan Lee were a bit critical of him this week
because he made some comments during the debate about Priya's law,
which for listeners who haven't been following along, um, Priya's
bill rather, which is about extending parental leave entitlements to
(26:09):
parents or women who've had a stillborn baby. He said
that he was concerned that the policy would be misused
basically by women who are having late term abortions, which,
as we know, is incredibly, incredibly rare. As one of
one of my contacts texted me and put it to
me this way, it's as though the Liberal Party is
actively searching for new cohorts of the population to actively offend,
(26:30):
because that is so offensive to so many women, and
so many women will have either lived through a miscarriage
or a stillbirth, or had an abortion. All of those
things are very, very common, as I'm sure you know.
I mean, do you just bang your head against the
wall when you hear someone like Hastie cropping up and
saying those things?
S3 (26:46):
Well, let me start by saying that I'm very fond
of Andrew Hastie. He and I came in at about
the same sort of time. So we've, you know, we're
kind of a cohort. We're an alumni. And he's extremely
talented and and articulate. And I think he's got some
really important things to say. I entirely respect his views
and the views of the others that, uh, that spoke
(27:06):
on this bill with that perspective. However, I don't necessarily
think this bill was the right vehicle to express that opinion.
You're right. This was a bill that was about putting
paid parental giving, paid parental leave to parents that had
suffered from a stillborn birth, which is so traumatic. And
(27:29):
the idea that somehow it would be turned into a
conversation about abortion or late term abortion, or whether people
are having late term abortions and then trying to claim money.
You know, I mean, I.
S5 (27:38):
Just it.
S3 (27:39):
Just seems so. It seemed like a, a long bow and,
and and be entirely unnecessary in this context. Now, if
you if that's something that you feel very passionate about,
certainly you talk about it in whatever chamber you want
to speak about, but just not in the context of
this industrial relations bill.
S2 (27:58):
What does it say about Andrews Hastie's potential to lead
a party?
S5 (28:03):
Oh.
S3 (28:04):
I wouldn't speculate on that. Susan Lee is the leader
of the party. I know he's he's he's expressed leadership ambitions, but, uh,
he's he's young. He's got plenty of time.
S1 (28:14):
To to be really frank. Do you think that someone,
that someone who holds those views and who suspects women
are capable of, of such a rorting is fit for
a leadership position? The leadership of the of the Liberal Party.
S3 (28:27):
Uh, well, there's a lot of interesting views around all
sorts of parts of the Parliament, whether it be in
the Labor Party, whether it be in the Liberal Party,
whether it be in the National Party. The real issue
is whether you take those very personally held views and
you turn them into policy. And I would imagine that
there are a lot of very conservative leaders that have
(28:48):
had some quite strident views about these things personally, that
haven't necessarily taken them into policy development in the past,
because they know that while they might feel something passionately
mainstream Australia, who they are representing, don't.
S1 (29:01):
Yeah, but doesn't that mean that they're not fit for leadership?
If they don't, if they don't basically have values that
represent mainstream Australia.
S3 (29:07):
No, I don't think you necessarily have to have values
identical or personally held. Positions that.
S5 (29:13):
Reflect the broad mainstream values of Australians hold.
S3 (29:16):
Broadly. Reflect is one thing, but you know, everybody's different.
Everybody has different perspectives on all sorts of things. It's
really whether you can, um, you know, say, well, this
is what I think, but I'm interested in what the
people I want to represent think and make sure that
we build policies and positions around their opinions, their hopes,
their dreams, not something that you, you know, believe and
(29:40):
and adhere to at home.
S2 (29:41):
And to put just to put their argument very briefly
because they're not here to defend themselves. But Andrew Hastie
says privately that he went out of his way to
be as sensitive as possible in his speech. Um, even
some of his right wing colleagues say, right, you were
sensitive in the way you spoke about it. But the
decision to speak in and of itself might have been insensitive.
S3 (29:58):
And I'll put my hand up and say, I haven't
actually heard what it is that they said. Exactly. I
haven't read the transcripts I read.
S1 (30:05):
I've read all the transcripts. I read the Hansard. I
am sure he was perfectly sensible, and he made the
point that he that he supported the bill overall and
he supported the intent of the bill, but that doesn't
really offset, I think, for a lot of women, the
fact that he spoke up and that he chose that
opportunity to shoehorn in this other issue about which he
(30:25):
obviously feels strongly. I do want to move on, Jackie.
S3 (30:27):
It's really important to, to to for your listeners to
know that this is not a widely held view around
the Liberal Party and that, you know, for the majority
of people in the Liberal Party, I think a woman's
right to choose is fundamentally important. There is no desire
to go out there and change abortion laws as a
sort of first order of business. And in fact, there'd
(30:50):
be an awful lot of people that I think would
leap to the other side of the chamber, should that
even be considered.
S1 (30:55):
And Opposition Leader Susan Lee made that very clear, that
she supports a woman's right to choose. I want to
move on because we're pretty much out of time. Let's
just pass forward. Jane, what is the best ground that
the opposition can fight on? To take the fight up
to the government and to convince Australians that you guys
are ready to govern again? What what grounds should you
be fighting on?
S3 (31:14):
Oh that's easy. Economics, economics and a little bit more
on economics, because the cost of living has still spiral
out of control. You know, we've seen housing prices or
house prices go up by around 20%. We've seen food
prices go up by 15%. Health is up by 15%.
Electricity is up by 40%. You know, everybody has felt
(31:36):
this is just in the last three years. So everybody's
feeling this. There must be better ways to have a
prosperous economy, because I think that that sense of aspiration
and opportunity has been sucked out of our society, which
is just, you know, that's not who we are. We
want to be a positive, hopeful country that, uh, you know,
(31:59):
where the next generation feel that they have a chance
to do better than the last. That I feel has gone.
That's the. That's where we should be fighting on reward
for effort and and making sure that we're sort of
tilling the soil of our economy so that there are
opportunities for that next generation, interesting businesses to go into
exciting industries and and making sure that everyone feels like
(32:22):
they have an opportunity to get ahead. That's what I'd
like to see.
S1 (32:25):
Yep.
S2 (32:26):
Just super quickly, you want to get back on the frontbench?
S3 (32:28):
Oh, absolutely. You know, of course I want to get
back on the frontbench. The frontbench is where the action happens,
particularly in government. Now, in opposition. There's great opportunities in
the backbench to. I've already introduced two bills just in
the last couple of weeks alone, one to repeal the
moratorium on on nuclear energy, another one to allow couples
and families to split their superannuation evenly between them. That's
(32:49):
stuff that I couldn't be doing if I was on
the front bench.
S2 (32:51):
But do you want to get back in Susan Lee's
frontbench or do you wait for the next?
S3 (32:54):
I would like to get back on on the frontbench
because it is a really important it's a really important
way to affect change.
S1 (33:00):
Thank you Jane, so much. That was very, very interesting.
Thank you for being a friend of the podcast and
we hope we can have you back.
S3 (33:06):
On me too. That was fun.
S1 (33:16):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
from Michael Pack. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to
our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside Politics
on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts.
To stay up to date with all the politics, news
(33:36):
and exclusives, visit The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald
websites to support our journalism. Subscribe to us by visiting
The Age or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you
for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Well, we are
coming to the end of a very torrid week for
the coalition, with yet more messy infighting over whether or
not it's going to dump its commitment to Australia achieving
net zero emissions by 2050. Opposition leader Sussan Ley has
(00:22):
been under an enormous amount of pressure. As usual, we
have our political correspondent Paul Chuckle, joining me from Canberra. Hi, Paul.
S2 (00:34):
Hi, Jack.
S1 (00:35):
And against that backdrop, the guests that Paul and I
have this week is a very timely guest. It is
Senator Jane Hume, liberal moderate and we are told a
long time listener of the podcast. So the rumour is true, Jane.
S3 (00:45):
They are true, Jack. I'm afraid I am an addict. Which, uh. But,
you know, take it as a compliment. I really enjoy
listening to you.
S1 (00:52):
As the highest of compliments. That's great.
S2 (00:54):
That's the point of panellist.
S3 (00:56):
Oh, ouch. You can't do that. That's like picking your
favorite child.
S1 (01:00):
No, we won't ask you that, Jane. Okay, let's just
assume for a moment that everyone listening to this podcast
has been hiding under a rock or, I don't know,
on a beach in Byron Bay all week and they
haven't heard anything about politics. What exactly is going on
in the Liberal Party?
S3 (01:13):
Ah, just in the Liberal Party or in Parliament, because
it's been a big week in Parliament all round. I mean,
there's a lot of things that are being discussed, whether
it be in the Senate or whether it be in
the House of Representatives. And right now, that environment protection
reform bill is going through being rammed through the House
of Representatives. So, you know, I don't want anyone to
think that there is only ever one thing going on
(01:34):
at a time in Parliament House, and that parties only
talk to themselves about themselves. That's not at all true.
That said, there has been some significant shifts in policy
positions within the Liberal Party and indeed the broader coalition.
This week. The National Party came out on the weekend
with their policy around net zero.
S4 (01:55):
I'm proud to say that our party room has got
to unanimous position of scrapping net zero commitments by 2050. I.
A little while ago informed the opposition leader, Sussan Ley,
of the National Party's decision to scrap net zero by 2050.
This is about bringing common sense back to climate and
energy policy.
S3 (02:15):
And now the Liberal Party, which has been working on
its energy and emissions policy for some time, is going
to come together and put some stakes in the ground.
And then the coalition, both the National Party and the
Liberal Party come together, find some compromises for a position
that we can take forward to the next election.
S2 (02:32):
Did they just totally gazump you the Nats?
S3 (02:34):
Well, no. No, I wouldn't say that. They gazumped us.
We kind of knew it was coming. They were very organised,
much more organised, I think, than we anticipated. There was
a lot of research that had gone into the work
that they had done. They had a website ready to
go almost the moment that they announced their position. So
I suppose, did that leave the liberals a little flat footed? Yes.
(02:55):
I don't think we'd plan for our own website. However,
we have been doing so much work behind the scenes.
One of the roles that I have is the co-convener
of a coalition policy committee group. Now that group allows
all coalition members, whatever their positions, to come together to
discuss policy issues. We've met about a dozen times, I suppose,
(03:16):
or so on issues around the Australian economy, whether it
be tax or budget issues or superannuation or housing. But
we've also met on energy. All of these things have
been really important.
S2 (03:26):
But the Nats. The Nats are actually developing like they
put out a policy paper that had a bunch of
actual thought through research policies. There's nothing like that on
your side.
S3 (03:35):
Well, I wouldn't go that far. There has actually been
an awful lot of work that's been done by Dan Tehan,
who obviously is a liberal. He's also the relevant shadow minister,
and that will be part of the Liberal Party's response.
S1 (03:47):
Jane. It just feels like it's gone on for a
long time. This is not an issue that's come up
overnight out of nowhere. I mean, it's been central to
Australia's politics for well over a decade. So, I mean,
from an outside perspective, it is like, what's the hold
up here? I mean, I know that you've got a
you've got an official review process sort of in place,
(04:07):
and that process apparently hasn't finished, but it doesn't seem
like anyone within the party has seen much of a
policy from that net zero review process. And from the outside, frankly,
it does look a bit like it's just an avoidance measure,
like it's just a process that is there to avoid
the issue, which nobody wants to grasp.
S3 (04:24):
I wouldn't I wouldn't say that, jacki. I mean, there
are two issues here. One, we're less than six months
out from an election. I think we've just hit six
months from an election. And it's unusual for an opposition
to come out with a hard and fast policy two
and a half years before the next election. Things change,
things move, and and we should be able to be
nimble and be flexible. But of course, the other aspect is,
(04:45):
and this is where the urgency comes from, energy is
the economy. And at the moment our economy is stalling
and in fact going backwards because our energy prices are
so high. So this week we saw, for instance, the
news about Tomago, uh, Australia's biggest aluminium smelter that is
has gone into receivership or doesn't think it's going to
(05:07):
be able to continue production. That's a real concern. But
it's not the first. No that's not. I want to
use a better expression, the canary in the coal mine.
We've already had, um, Oceana glass. We've seen Incitec pivot.
We've seen, um, there's a plastics company whose name escapes me.
I think it was, um, kinos.
S2 (05:26):
I think it was called.
S3 (05:27):
Yeah. I mean, all of these companies are going down.
There's actually 1400 manufacturing firms that have gone under just
under a Labour government.
S1 (05:37):
So one.
S3 (05:37):
Of.
S1 (05:37):
The.
S3 (05:37):
Drivers of that is very high energy prices. So getting
this right is really important.
S1 (05:42):
But but as I mean that kind of proves the
point doesn't it. All of these all of these huge
energy burning industries are going under are struggling with international
competition and with energy prices because of the messy, expensive
transition that the economy must and is and will continue
to go through. You know that better than anyone. You're
one of the three members of the Liberal Party room
(06:05):
who are actually willing to put on record that they
support net zero by 2050. So the transition is happening.
Companies are hurting, jobs are being lost. So doesn't that
make the policy more urgent or the need for a
policy from you guys more urgent?
S3 (06:18):
All right. I'm going to correct you first and foremost. Yes.
In the newspaper, there were only three of us that
came out and said we support a net zero position.
There are plenty more than that. Sometimes we get these
calls saying, what do you think of this? You know,
this is a survey. What do you think? And if
people don't respond, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have
a position.
S1 (06:34):
This is just just so our readers know that the
News Corp tabloids had a sort of piece this week,
basically going through every member of the party room and
saying whether or not they were on record as being
pro net zero, and Jane Hume was pro net zero.
But as she's saying, maybe not everyone took the call
from the Telegraph or got back to the Telegraph reporter.
S3 (06:52):
But Netzero itself is has turned into this sort of
totemic phrase, this sort of binary issue. Are you pro
net zero or anti net zero? Which I think is
just crazy. Everybody wants to reduce emissions. Net zero has
somehow become this euphemism for whether you believe in man
made climate change or not, and whether you think that
a government should do something about it. We have already
(07:13):
signed up to the Paris Agreement, and even the National
Party have said that they want to maintain our Paris commitments.
Paris commitments means that each country sort of chooses its
own adventure to reducing emissions, agrees that emissions have to
come down, but they may set their own targets. And
this is what we've said now. Other countries have said,
you know, China has said net zero by 2060. India
(07:35):
has said by 2070, um, but it's all about managing
that pathway. I think what we can all agree on
in the Liberal Party is that the pathway that Labour
have chosen simply is not working. And Australians economy and
their households and businesses are paying an enormous price for that.
The 2030 targets don't look like they're going to be met.
There's problems with the renewables rollout and everything that comes
(07:59):
with that. And now the 2035 targets we think are
not just unachievable, but they're entirely unworkable. That's what we
should be focusing on. Labor's failures here to deliver on
their own commitments and the cost to Australian businesses.
S1 (08:14):
Australian families. I want to I mean, I guess I
want to take a step back and you're talking about
the nitty gritty of the targets. And I agree with
you that the net zero sort of become this totemic thing.
It's become a totemic thing, though, because the coalition over many,
many electoral cycles has sort of shown the electorate that
it's not particularly convinced about reaching net zero emissions. And
it's not particularly convinced or convincing in its commitment to
(08:37):
the Paris Agreement. Isn't this a question of sincerity? I mean,
whether or not the voters actually think you're sincere? Because
I can say that I've got an aspiration to travel
to India. I'd love to go to India one day,
but I haven't booked a ticket and I haven't booked,
you know, travel insurance and I haven't, you know, made
childcare arrangements for my kid like that shows that I'm
not particularly sincere in that, in that aspiration, doesn't it?
S3 (09:00):
I think you sound perfectly sincere in your aspiration. It
just means that you're not necessarily committed to the pathway
to getting to India just yet.
S2 (09:09):
I can see an eat, pray, love style trip for Jackie.
S1 (09:11):
Oh, yes. Yes, please.
S3 (09:13):
Um, look, I mean, I think we should wear the
Liberal Party. Should wear its environmental credentials on its sleeve.
You know, we're the party that established Kakadu National Park.
We established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Reserve. This is
something that's really important to us. And there is something
to be said for conservation and environment being a really
(09:34):
important principle to conservatives. There's actually a reason why conservation
and conservative, uh, have a very similar origins. But at
the same time, this particular issue, this idea of reducing
emissions by a particular time frame and doing it through
a renewables only approach is something that we have rejected
(09:55):
for some time or been sceptical of for some time.
And it's not just the Liberal Party. Dare I say
you put out there in any form of polling, any
form of survey, do you believe that we should reach
net zero, that we should reduce emissions? And everyone says, yeah, absolutely.
And then when you say and how much you personally
are prepared to pay for it in terms of higher
electricity prices or higher grocery prices or a lower standard
(10:17):
of living, and everyone goes, oh, hang on, I'm not
entirely sure that that's the way I want to get there.
I want to get there, but I want someone else
to pay for it. And that, I think, is the
sort of the realist, you know, the realistic approach to
making sure that we meet our commitments, reduce our emissions,
you know, have a better environment for the next generation.
But at the same time, we don't turn the lights
(10:39):
out on the way.
S2 (10:40):
Just on this on the net zero tagline, I find it.
It's incredible how cosmetic and superficial this debate has become. Internally,
you're arguing over the set of words, not over the
mechanisms to get to emissions reduction. You talk about the
kind of purity test that's come of this. To me,
the most convincing argument I've heard from some in your
party to get rid of net zero is that it's
(11:00):
become a toxic word to some segment of the voter base.
It has come to mean different things, and they're they
just won't abide it. And that's that's a big portion
of your party base. And that you guys can use
different words to reach a green future at a slower
pace than labor. Still, try and make the forceful argument
to the public that you are serious about emissions reduction,
(11:21):
but using different mechanisms, using different frames, and making different
political arguments. Would you be comfortable if the party landed
with some commitment to the Paris Agreement without the term
net zero done in the liberal way, do you think
you can win that argument?
S3 (11:36):
I think that the phrase net zero has become synonymous
with the Paris Agreement because Paris has said that getting
to net zero emissions is how we keep global temperatures lower. Yeah,
that's part of the the the 2050 framework. If we
(11:57):
abandon the phrase net zero. I think for so many people,
that will mean that they think that we have abandoned
a commitment to reduce emissions. And let's remember, not everybody
is engaged as politics, in politics, as me or or
the two of you or the people that are listening
to this podcast. They would see one as a euphemism
for another. I hate that idea that people would assume
(12:21):
that somehow the Liberal Party has abandoned its commitments to
either lower emissions or to improving the environment.
S2 (12:28):
So keep the term if if the leader drops the
term and goes with the right and with the Nats
and where they're pushing her. view, the moderates and the
small center right actually put her in the job. Andrew
Bragg and Tim Wilson and you in recent days have
made super strong comments about Susan Lee's leadership. What would
happen to her position as leader if she were to
(12:49):
go in that direction? Would there be frontbench resignations? Would
you guys push for a split with the nationals? Where
do these threats actually lead to?
S3 (12:56):
I think not only is that catastrophizing, but it is
also beyond hypothetical. We have a lot of steps in
this process to get through before those kinds of decisions
need to be made. Susan Lee has said from the
outset that she wants us to meet our commitments. She
wants to lower emissions, but not at any cost. That
(13:17):
was her phrase, and I think that most Australians would
agree with that. The question is, how do we get there?
And that's exactly what we're going to land on.
S1 (13:25):
I would say the question is what what does at
any cost mean? I mean, when is the Liberal Party
going to actually come out and say, this is the
cost base that we will accept and this is the
cost that we will not accept. Well, this is a
good question. There's no clarity around any of that.
S3 (13:39):
100% agree with you on this one. To be honest,
I think that reducing emissions and the cost to get
there should be business as usual. It should be part
of our budgeting process. You know, we have aspirations about
where we want to see debt get to in a
decade's time when we want to see a budget come
(14:00):
back into surplus, what we want inflation to be, what
we want productivity to grow at, what we want the
economy to grow. This is part of what we do
reducing emissions. And I think energy supply and reliability of
the grid should also be part of that process. I'm
actually I've been advocating in my party room to include
emissions reductions and energy supply mix and price as part
(14:25):
of a budget process, a separate budget book, even. And
that way you could also list all the measures and
the costs of getting there, because there are so many
things in our you know, when we go through Senate
estimates that are dedicated to reducing emissions, whether it's the
Clean Energy Finance Corporation or Arena or the National Reconstruction
Fund or the Emissions Reduction Fund, there's the climate Change authority,
(14:49):
the net zero authority. I mean, there's.
S1 (14:50):
Just is that something.
S3 (14:51):
That.
S1 (14:52):
Is that is that something that's going to be part
of the liberal policy then? Because what you're talking about
sounds a lot like a net zero aspiration or a
net zero target. And maybe there's a budget paper there
that is like, you know, this is the cost of
emissions in this budget year.
S3 (15:04):
I would love to see that, because I think that
that would hold governments to account. And it would also
be entirely transparent. So you could say, well, this is
where we want to go, but this is what's going
to cost to get there. That way, each government each
year gets to make adjustments accordingly.
S1 (15:18):
And they're accountable.
S3 (15:19):
Exactly right for the decisions that they make. Look, this
is the story that really got to me. I was
pushing my trolley through Woolworths the other day, and I
saw up on the wall a big sign that said
Woolworths is committed to net zero by 2050. And we're
going to do this by electrifying our trucks. And I thought,
oh well good on Woolworths for doing that. I'm probably
paying slightly higher grocery prices for that. But you know
(15:42):
okay I'm prepared to do that. And then I was
getting ready for the estimates week and I was reading about, um,
investments that the Cefc had made. And on my heavens,
there was $6 million from the CFC that had gone
to Woolworths to electrify their trucks. And then I dug
a little further. Arena had given $19 million to Woolworths
to electrify their trucks. So that's $25 million of taxpayer
(16:06):
money that had gone to a private company. Sorry, a
publicly listed company that, let's face it, uh, made about
$1.6 billion in underlying profit last year. So to.
S1 (16:17):
Get to net zero, I.
S3 (16:18):
Think why is this? I don't want to pay. My
taxes are higher, my energy bills are higher, and my
grocery prices are higher for this objective. And Woolworths is
taking the credit.
S1 (16:28):
Sure. But I mean, they're not the only big company
that's making a large profit, that's taking, you know, a
taxpayer subsidy. And the Tomago smelter that you've just talked about,
that corporate.
S3 (16:36):
Welfare side, I think is something that really irks people.
So if you said, all right, well, we want to
have a target to get to a net zero future,
but there must be, you know, a reduction in that
corporate welfare program. There must be investment in new technologies
that can bring us there, rather than just throwing money
at proven technology subsidies for proven technologies. There's got to
(16:59):
be better social licence and community consultation for the rollout
of the renewables and transmission lines across regional and rural communities,
which is just so contentious. There are better ways of
doing this. Um, and Labor's way isn't.
S2 (17:16):
We're so in some ways so in the weeds of
a policy development process for a party that's just lost
an election. It's probably two elections away from getting back
into government. It's quite bizarre in some ways how focused
we are on an opposition policy. Do you ever step
back and think, why aren't we spending more of our
time thinking about the structural issues in the party? Your
(17:37):
2022 election review how you get your values messaging, campaign strategies,
communication right? Do you find this just a bit paralyzing
and not the main game? Are you despairing about the
existential issues at the moment or?
S3 (17:50):
Well, I despaired about the existential issues in 2022. And
that document that you're referring to, the review into the
election loss in 2022 that I was a co-author of
with Brian Loughnane, had some three groups of recommendations for
the parliamentary team, but also for the organisational wing and
the professional wing. So the membership and the the campaign
(18:14):
guys really, uh, and for the parliamentary team, funnily enough,
there was really only one recommendation, which was to stay
united and disciplined. Now we absolutely did that in the
last Parliament, but unfortunately it came at a cost. And
that cost was we didn't hold up our end of
the bargain with the obligation to dissent. Uh, any dissent
(18:36):
was seen as disunity. That's a bad thing. Now, maybe
we've gone too far the other way in this Parliament.
Everybody said, I'm not doing that again. Next time something
doesn't sit right with me, I'm going to speak up.
And there's a lot of people speaking up right now.
S1 (18:51):
Yeah. Do you, um, do you think, Jane, that Susan
Lee is the right person to lead the party through
this extremely difficult period in terms of political disunity, but
also policy development?
S3 (19:03):
Well, Susan is a very calm person. She's got a,
you know, the right temperament. I think for this it's
not an easy thing to navigate. Uh, energy policy, uh,
has taken down leaders before, as we know. Uh, but,
you know, I think she's stuck to her guns, and
I admire her for that. Her messaging hasn't changed. Her
messaging hasn't changed.
S1 (19:23):
She's very inscrutable, though. I mean, she she hasn't said
what her personal position is on net zero. In fact,
I think voters don't really know her very well at all. What?
What are your impressions of her? You know her personally.
What she really likes.
S3 (19:35):
Uh, well, I don't know her particularly well, so I
don't want to, you know, make claims to that. Uh, but, look,
I do think she has been upfront with her party
and with the public that she wants to make sure
that all voices are heard, that opinions are sought and considered.
S1 (19:56):
Jane, why do you think that, um, Liberal Party has
lost the trust of so many female voters?
S3 (20:01):
Uh, look, it's a really tough one to say because
prior to 2001, more women in Australia voted liberal than labor. Um,
there's a couple of reasons why I think that is
no longer the case. And some of them are sort
of structural. Uh, you know, one of them is the
fact that the labor movement has become far more feminized.
(20:23):
So women are now seeing themselves reflected in the labor
movement more than they did in the past, when it
was all a very sort of blokey thing. The labor movement,
the union movement was very blokey. And as the union
movement has become more feminized, so too has the Labor Party.
So I think that that is something that we probably underestimate.
(20:46):
The other problem, of course, is it becomes, um, a
little bit of homosocial reproduction, which for the uninitiated is no,
not something that some of my big word. It is. Well,
it's two big words, actually. It's not something that Eric
Abetz would naturally vote against. That's not it. It's, uh,
it actually just means that we tend to replicate ourselves.
(21:06):
So I think you find if the Labor Party has
attracted more, more female votes, then the Liberal Party naturally
seeks votes from a different demographic. And that becomes a
self-perpetuating thing. Uh, which is a big mistake because let's
face it, you can't leave out 50% of the population
in your policy development. And, you know, I think that
(21:28):
perhaps we might have done that. Now, I should say, too,
that while Labour have done a much better job, I
think it's speaking to women than the Liberal Party have.
They have a very different philosophy. It's almost like they
want to compensate women for being women as opposed to
empower them. And I think.
S2 (21:45):
Do you need to do do you need to do
a big set piece apology on the work from home
thing to kill that issue off and move forward?
S3 (21:51):
Work from home is such a fraught issue and you know,
you can see it playing out now. I've actually tried
to keep my head low on this one because this
policy was so badly misrepresented. It was originally about Canberra
public servants, 60% of whom are working from home and
making it really difficult to get stuff done up here.
(22:12):
Everything from graduate programs and mentoring programs to meetings with
stakeholders weren't going ahead. Or if they did go ahead
like you'd fly your team up from Melbourne. Walk into
a department and be met with a screen with everybody
coming up on the screen. So look, that's what it
was trying to amend. Now, uh, labor really. You know,
(22:33):
they ran rings around us on this one and somehow
created this giant scare campaign that it was going to
go wider than that, that it was about the private sector,
not the public sector. And we even said from the
outset it no existing arrangements would change and flexible work
would always remain. It just had to be something that
was negotiated with your with your manager rather than a
(22:54):
right to demand it.
S2 (22:55):
There's no doubt labor absolutely weaponised it and made false
claims about it. But do you acknowledge in hindsight now time,
so much time has passed that your speech that you
gave sent a kind of anti work from home signal
across the economy, which could have been interpreted by private
sector employees as something that might eventually, if it exists
in the public sector, be reflected in ebas across the community.
(23:17):
And did you do well enough to explain that and
tamp it down? To me? It felt at the time,
as on your part and others in the party, that
there was a stubbornness to acknowledge how this had flowed
into the society. And I think Keith Wolahan has effectively
said it cost him his seat.
S3 (23:31):
Yeah. Look, I wouldn't agree with Keith on that. In fact,
if you look at the, um, the way that the
votes fell in his seat, that probably isn't true. But that's,
you know, by the by, um, look, to be honest,
this is a policy that we probably should have not
released in a, in an election campaign. Um, it was
(23:52):
plagued with probably bad messaging, bad timing, um, a really
good campaign from labor, if you remember rightly, like the
week after was the cyclone or hurricane in Queensland. So
everybody's conversation, everybody sort of started looking elsewhere. No policies
were announced. This one had the opportunity to sort of
be hijacked quietly behind the scenes acknowledge.
S1 (24:14):
And I mean, it's good to hear you sort of
talk about it and to remind us as well, what
the original intent of the policy was. But do you
do you think that it just sort of ended up
giving a message that the Liberal Party didn't understand working
parents and their juggle, and they didn't understand the sort
of the new situation or the contemporary reality of most
working families where both parents are working, juggling kids, trying
(24:37):
to get to work, trying to be good employees, trying
to be good parents, and they're trying to do it all.
And working from home is a really, really important and
useful tool in trying to manage that juggle.
S3 (24:46):
I think that we never denied any of that, but
the messaging that was coming out from labor, which like,
you know, let's be honest, it was kind of being
amplified by the media as well, didn't do us any
favors in that regard. Trying to get the messaging right
was difficult. I think Peter stumbled. I mean, and look,
people stumble on messages during campaigns all the time. Peter
(25:08):
stumbled on some messaging there. He said, well, women can
always job share. That was, you know, that was.
S1 (25:13):
A.
S3 (25:13):
That was a, that was a that was a flat
footed comment. And even he would say it was a
flat footed comment. Um, so of course there's things that
you would, you know, you would rethink. But to be honest,
I think the backflip of the policy was probably almost
as damaging, perhaps more damaging than explaining the policy appropriate.
S2 (25:32):
Shouldn't have backflipped on it.
S3 (25:33):
Yeah. Look, other people will decide. Look, hey, there's an
election review coming out. I'm absolutely certain that this will
come up. Um, but to be honest, if you want
to say. Is that the reason why we lost the election? No, no, that.
S2 (25:44):
Was what was.
S5 (25:45):
Let's let's let's.
S1 (25:46):
Move on because we don't have a lot of time left.
And there's a few other things I want to step through.
Andrew Hastie's been in the news a lot. He's often
talked about as a leadership contender. Now, you and also
Susan Lee were a bit critical of him this week
because he made some comments during the debate about Priya's law,
which for listeners who haven't been following along, um, Priya's
bill rather, which is about extending parental leave entitlements to
(26:09):
parents or women who've had a stillborn baby. He said
that he was concerned that the policy would be misused
basically by women who are having late term abortions, which,
as we know, is incredibly, incredibly rare. As one of
one of my contacts texted me and put it to
me this way, it's as though the Liberal Party is
actively searching for new cohorts of the population to actively offend,
(26:30):
because that is so offensive to so many women, and
so many women will have either lived through a miscarriage
or a stillbirth, or had an abortion. All of those
things are very, very common, as I'm sure you know.
I mean, do you just bang your head against the
wall when you hear someone like Hastie cropping up and
saying those things?
S3 (26:46):
Well, let me start by saying that I'm very fond
of Andrew Hastie. He and I came in at about
the same sort of time. So we've, you know, we're
kind of a cohort. We're an alumni. And he's extremely
talented and and articulate. And I think he's got some
really important things to say. I entirely respect his views
and the views of the others that, uh, that spoke
(27:06):
on this bill with that perspective. However, I don't necessarily
think this bill was the right vehicle to express that opinion.
You're right. This was a bill that was about putting
paid parental giving, paid parental leave to parents that had
suffered from a stillborn birth, which is so traumatic. And
(27:29):
the idea that somehow it would be turned into a
conversation about abortion or late term abortion, or whether people
are having late term abortions and then trying to claim money.
You know, I mean, I.
S5 (27:38):
Just it.
S3 (27:39):
Just seems so. It seemed like a, a long bow and,
and and be entirely unnecessary in this context. Now, if
you if that's something that you feel very passionate about,
certainly you talk about it in whatever chamber you want
to speak about, but just not in the context of
this industrial relations bill.
S2 (27:58):
What does it say about Andrews Hastie's potential to lead
a party?
S5 (28:03):
Oh.
S3 (28:04):
I wouldn't speculate on that. Susan Lee is the leader
of the party. I know he's he's he's expressed leadership ambitions, but, uh,
he's he's young. He's got plenty of time.
S1 (28:14):
To to be really frank. Do you think that someone,
that someone who holds those views and who suspects women
are capable of, of such a rorting is fit for
a leadership position? The leadership of the of the Liberal Party.
S3 (28:27):
Uh, well, there's a lot of interesting views around all
sorts of parts of the Parliament, whether it be in
the Labor Party, whether it be in the Liberal Party,
whether it be in the National Party. The real issue
is whether you take those very personally held views and
you turn them into policy. And I would imagine that
there are a lot of very conservative leaders that have
(28:48):
had some quite strident views about these things personally, that
haven't necessarily taken them into policy development in the past,
because they know that while they might feel something passionately
mainstream Australia, who they are representing, don't.
S1 (29:01):
Yeah, but doesn't that mean that they're not fit for leadership?
If they don't, if they don't basically have values that
represent mainstream Australia.
S3 (29:07):
No, I don't think you necessarily have to have values
identical or personally held. Positions that.
S5 (29:13):
Reflect the broad mainstream values of Australians hold.
S3 (29:16):
Broadly. Reflect is one thing, but you know, everybody's different.
Everybody has different perspectives on all sorts of things. It's
really whether you can, um, you know, say, well, this
is what I think, but I'm interested in what the
people I want to represent think and make sure that
we build policies and positions around their opinions, their hopes,
their dreams, not something that you, you know, believe and
(29:40):
and adhere to at home.
S2 (29:41):
And to put just to put their argument very briefly
because they're not here to defend themselves. But Andrew Hastie
says privately that he went out of his way to
be as sensitive as possible in his speech. Um, even
some of his right wing colleagues say, right, you were
sensitive in the way you spoke about it. But the
decision to speak in and of itself might have been insensitive.
S3 (29:58):
And I'll put my hand up and say, I haven't
actually heard what it is that they said. Exactly. I
haven't read the transcripts I read.
S1 (30:05):
I've read all the transcripts. I read the Hansard. I
am sure he was perfectly sensible, and he made the
point that he that he supported the bill overall and
he supported the intent of the bill, but that doesn't
really offset, I think, for a lot of women, the
fact that he spoke up and that he chose that
opportunity to shoehorn in this other issue about which he
(30:25):
obviously feels strongly. I do want to move on, Jackie.
S3 (30:27):
It's really important to, to to for your listeners to
know that this is not a widely held view around
the Liberal Party and that, you know, for the majority
of people in the Liberal Party, I think a woman's
right to choose is fundamentally important. There is no desire
to go out there and change abortion laws as a
sort of first order of business. And in fact, there'd
(30:50):
be an awful lot of people that I think would
leap to the other side of the chamber, should that
even be considered.
S1 (30:55):
And Opposition Leader Susan Lee made that very clear, that
she supports a woman's right to choose. I want to
move on because we're pretty much out of time. Let's
just pass forward. Jane, what is the best ground that
the opposition can fight on? To take the fight up
to the government and to convince Australians that you guys
are ready to govern again? What what grounds should you
be fighting on?
S3 (31:14):
Oh that's easy. Economics, economics and a little bit more
on economics, because the cost of living has still spiral
out of control. You know, we've seen housing prices or
house prices go up by around 20%. We've seen food
prices go up by 15%. Health is up by 15%.
Electricity is up by 40%. You know, everybody has felt
(31:36):
this is just in the last three years. So everybody's
feeling this. There must be better ways to have a
prosperous economy, because I think that that sense of aspiration
and opportunity has been sucked out of our society, which
is just, you know, that's not who we are. We
want to be a positive, hopeful country that, uh, you know,
(31:59):
where the next generation feel that they have a chance
to do better than the last. That I feel has gone.
That's the. That's where we should be fighting on reward
for effort and and making sure that we're sort of
tilling the soil of our economy so that there are
opportunities for that next generation, interesting businesses to go into
exciting industries and and making sure that everyone feels like
(32:22):
they have an opportunity to get ahead. That's what I'd
like to see.
S1 (32:25):
Yep.
S2 (32:26):
Just super quickly, you want to get back on the frontbench?
S3 (32:28):
Oh, absolutely. You know, of course I want to get
back on the frontbench. The frontbench is where the action happens,
particularly in government. Now, in opposition. There's great opportunities in
the backbench to. I've already introduced two bills just in
the last couple of weeks alone, one to repeal the
moratorium on on nuclear energy, another one to allow couples
and families to split their superannuation evenly between them. That's
(32:49):
stuff that I couldn't be doing if I was on
the front bench.
S2 (32:51):
But do you want to get back in Susan Lee's
frontbench or do you wait for the next?
S3 (32:54):
I would like to get back on on the frontbench
because it is a really important it's a really important
way to affect change.
S1 (33:00):
Thank you Jane, so much. That was very, very interesting.
Thank you for being a friend of the podcast and
we hope we can have you back.
S3 (33:06):
On me too. That was fun.
S1 (33:16):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
from Michael Pack. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to
our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside Politics
on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts.
To stay up to date with all the politics, news
(33:36):
and exclusives, visit The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald
websites to support our journalism. Subscribe to us by visiting
The Age or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you
for listening.
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