July 24, 2025 • 21 mins
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces tricky terrain with the government lifting a ban on US beef imports to Australia this week, leaving him open to suggestions he has capitulated to pressure from Donald Trump.
We also witnessed a democratic festival in the form of the opening of the new parliament, with former foes Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack putting differences aside to attack the government's 2035 emissions reduction target.
Soon, the PM will have to decide on the interm emissions target. Some big companies want him to go hard, while others urge a slower approach to the green energy transition.
Now that the US has pulled out of the Paris Agreement altogether, what will Albanese do?
Today, Chief Political Correspondent Paul Sakkal joins host Jacqueline Maley.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, July 25th.
This week we witnessed a democratic festival in the form
of the opening of the 48th Parliament.
S2 (00:19):
The call to the honourable the Prime Minister.
S3 (00:21):
Well, thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.
S1 (00:24):
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's dominance of the House of Representatives
is undeniable. A newish opposition leader, Sussan Ley, faces a
huge challenge in cementing her authority over a fractious coalition
set to have a big argument over its climate policy,
with the nationals looking like they're set to ditch any
commitment to net zero emissions by 2050.
S4 (00:46):
By ourselves, that has no effect on the climate. It's insane.
S1 (00:51):
But Albanese also faces tricky terrain. This week, the government
lifted a ban on US beef imports to Australia, leaving
Albanese open to suggestions he's capitulated to pressure from US
President Donald Trump, and soon the PM will have to
decide on the Australian government's interim 2035 emissions reduction target.
Joining me today we have the original gang back together.
(01:13):
We've got Paul Satchell hot off the plane from China
where he was with the PM last week. He is
our very own chief political correspondent. Hello, Paul.
S5 (01:21):
Hey. It was hot off the plane. China was very
hot when we arrived in Chengdu, which is this massive
city in the western province of Sichuan. It was like mid-afternoon,
I think it was 37 or 38 degrees in the air,
and the real feel was 48.
S1 (01:39):
Oh my gosh, I don't even I can't even imagine
what that feels like.
S5 (01:42):
It was the hottest afternoon I've ever felt when we
went to a tennis court in the blaring sun, where
Chinese officials gave very long speeches which needed to be
translated at the same time, so to, to say we
were sweating through our t shirts and yeah, um, and,
and struggling would be an understatement. But it was a
great trip.
S1 (01:59):
It was grueling. Well, we really enjoyed your reporting. Just
quickly behind the scenes, how was Anthony Albanese sort of
demeanor when he was on the trip? Because when he
first became prime minister, there was criticism that he didn't
have a lot of well, he had sort of no
international experience. How is he now in these big diplomatic trips?
Is he more relaxed?
S5 (02:15):
Well, I don't think when he came to the prime ministership,
he was immediately seen as someone who would be comfortable
on the international stage. He's never had a portfolio in
the economic, security or foreign affairs spaces. He's an infrastructure
guy before coming, becoming leader. So I don't think people
thought it would come naturally to him. But I think
to his credit, and he would argue, and the government
(02:36):
does argue, that he's had an unexpected number of wins
on the international stage. There's been this period of stabilization
with China, which is now potentially moving into a phase
of even greater warmth. There's been close knit ties with Indonesia,
which the government is really proud of. A key regional ally.
He's extracted a number of Australians from detention, including Cheng
(02:57):
Lei from China last year.
S1 (02:59):
He got some people out of the clink in Indonesia too,
didn't he?
S5 (03:02):
Yeah he did. So? So there are some things to
hang your hat on there. And on the China trip
he was particularly after the meetings with Chinese officials, including
the president and premier, on the Tuesday, which was, I think,
the third day of the trip. He was in quite
a relaxed and really vibrant mood on the plane back
when I interviewed him, he was wearing a Joy Division
(03:23):
t shirt. He was very relaxed and he was speaking
quite effusively about the trip and not, not not really.
Not really playing into the criticism from conservatives back home
that he might be cuddling up a little too closely
with an autocrat.
S1 (03:34):
Yeah. Um, band t shirt. Albo is relaxed. Albo. Let's
move on to this week. Of course, there is one,
you know, a particular diplomatic international diplomatic trip on which
he has not gone, and a particular ally which has
not invited him to visit. And we all know who
that is. But there was some movement this week on
that front. On Thursday, the news broke that the Australian
(03:54):
government has lifted a ban on beef imports from the
United States. This is something that the Trump administration has
been lobbying for and cross about for quite some time,
that we have had a ban on US beef imports.
Why did we lift this ban now? Is the timing suspicious?
S5 (04:08):
The trade minister, Don Farrell, on Thursday morning insisted there
was nothing suspicious about it. This is just a scientific
review that's been going on for five years, and the
five year culmination just happened to come in the key
period of months when Australia is negotiating with the US.
You want to jump in, Jackie?
S1 (04:25):
Well, and this scientific review is basically about the fact
that Australia has always felt that the United States doesn't
have the right biosecurity structures in place to stop us
getting nasty diseases from cows from the US, specifically mad
cow disease. That's my very, very brief.
S5 (04:41):
And that's that's pretty.
S1 (04:42):
Simplistic understanding of Australian biosecurity laws.
S5 (04:46):
There hasn't there's been there was this long standing US
restriction based on an outbreak of mad cow disease many
years ago. There hasn't actually been a formal ban for
about 5 or 6 years. But no US beef has
been imported into Australia because of these barriers around whether
we can in Australia, abide by our own really strict
(05:07):
traceability rules for cattle that's born in Canada or Mexico
but slaughtered in the US. Our officials have been over
there for many, many months now, trying to test if
the US has put restrictions around their biosecurity that are
sufficient for our own purposes. And in recent months, it's
become clear that there was a positive trajectory in that review.
And when we wrote a story a month ago on
(05:30):
this topic, it was very much framed to us as
a carrot for the US administration. Donald Trump has talked
about how Australia blocks US beef. It's something that annoys him,
and it was pitched to us as something that could
be used in the tariff negotiations reported today by the
Australian Financial Review, that that decision was finalised. But the
government line, whenever a minister stands up to talk on
(05:52):
the issue, they are not going near linking the tariff
talk with the with the biosecurity challenge.
S1 (05:58):
Okay. But let's talk about the realpolitik, because the Prime
Minister has talked a pretty big game in the past,
particularly during the election campaign, about acting always in Australia's
interests when it comes to pressure from the Trump administration.
Have they bowed to pressure here in a way or thought? Look,
we can give them this in the hope that it
will stand us in good stead for broader tariff negotiations
(06:19):
with the US.
S5 (06:20):
We've already seen the coalition come out and the nationals leader,
David Littleproud, who's obviously someone with interest in in on
the cattle side of things and taking the taking the
side of farmers, they've come out and called this an
act of appeasement of Donald Trump and that the Prime
Minister is trying to play catch up in the relationship
with the US. He hasn't met Donald Trump, and now
he's reached for a an easy win that compromises Australian agriculture.
(06:44):
I think the government would say that that criticism is
over the top, that this was low hanging fruit where
the government had a had had an option to give
the US something that it wanted, something that plays into
Trump's personal set of grievances. He's he's a guy who's,
you know, spent part of his campaign flipping burgers at McDonald's.
He loves McDonald's burgers. Australian beef is used in US burgers,
(07:07):
so he would wonder why they can't sell beef into Australia. Yeah,
this is something that might play into the way the
president thinks about the world. To cut a deal. And
the Australians are pretty confident that it's not something that's
going to hurt our biosecurity rules. I think they would
argue this is low hanging fruit that gives us a
little win or a little chance of a win.
S1 (07:23):
It's burger diplomacy.
S5 (07:25):
Burger diplomacy.
S1 (07:26):
We found the we found the soft spot in Trump's
otherwise very hard exterior.
S5 (07:31):
Panders to cattle.
S1 (07:33):
These little Mexican cows that we're going to be eating. Okay,
let's talk about the pomp and ceremony of parliament opening
this week. It was the 48th Parliament opened, and that's
always a few special days in Canberra. The Governor-General addresses
both houses.
S6 (07:46):
Blackrod. Please let the members of the House of Representatives
know that I desire their attendance in the Senate.
S1 (07:52):
The lower house MPs go to the Senate and they
all crowd in together on the benches. The usher of
the Black Rod comes into the house and grabs them all.
S6 (08:00):
Mr. speaker, the usher of the Black Rod, with a
message from Her Excellency.
S1 (08:04):
The have that they do that thing where they pretend
to drag the speaker to the chair. There are all
these beautiful ancient traditions from our British parliamentary history. But
I suppose the big story of the week for this
48th Parliament is the enormous disparity between the numbers on
the government bench and the numbers on the opposition bench.
So I just wanted to ask you about how that
(08:25):
played out atmospherically, and also how Susan Lee went as
the opposition leader in her first sort of formal week
in that role in the Parliament.
S5 (08:35):
Yeah, everyone had been flagging in the lead up to these,
to this first week that the optics of the huge
government benches and the diminished oppositions would be quite striking. And,
you know, it's almost a cliche to say it now,
but it really was. The feeling in the building this
week is really palpable around the opposition just not having
(08:55):
the same heft as last term. It lacks a figurehead
leader in Peter Dutton, who is clearly, um, hugely discredited
now because of the election result. But for much of
last term at least, the press gallery political bubble narrative
was that he was ascendant. Parliament felt like a place
where the opposition would often have the government on the
(09:16):
back foot. They were nowhere near as small as they
are now, and the Prime Minister had some really tough weeks. Instead,
this week we have what feels really like a procession
for the government's massive win in May. There's three bills
on the agenda, all of which are relatively non-controversial and
popular for labor, being around, um, boosting childcare safety penalty
rates and the HECS 20% fee cut. And the government
(09:39):
made a call to not even talk about the contentious
element of its agenda around superannuation tax. They're deferring that
for another sitting fortnight because what they want to do
in this fortnight is get through these bits of legislation
which they key popular promises, as well as do all
of the maiden speeches for the new members. So it
really does feel like a moment where the government is
(10:00):
basking in its win and the opposition and talking. So
to have such a long answer, but talking to some
of the opposition members this week in private, this this sounds, um,
sounds terrible to say, but, you know, they're in this
building and I think some of them are questioning their
place in politics. They're wondering, you know, where they go next.
They're wondering if they're in the same situation three years
(10:21):
from now, after the next election, whether they've made the
right choice in their career. There are some really existential
questions being asked in the coalition environment.
S1 (10:28):
Yeah, none of which I think is good for democracy.
I mean, I know that's sort of quite an earnest
thing to say, but democracy does thrive and the Parliament
does thrive when you have a really strong opposition. Let's
move on to the opposition, because whatever tentative peace there
may have been at the beginning of the parliamentary week,
it was quickly broken by Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack,
(10:48):
both former nationals leaders, who made it pretty clear that
they're going to make David Littleproud's life difficult with their
opposition to net zero by 2050. Paul, tell us about
the mischief that they were making.
S5 (11:02):
Yeah, quite the way to start the first sitting day
of Parliament by those two former nationals leaders.
S7 (11:08):
The new dream team, the dream couple, the member for
New England, the member for Riverina are out there this
morning backing each other in, the member for Riverina said
on The Kieran Gilbert Show where virile and we're out there.
S5 (11:20):
McCormack and Joyce, obviously, both of them former deputy prime
ministers under the last coalition government, they've been pushed to
the outer fringes of the National Party by the current leader,
David Littleproud. There's so much personal history between this trio.
When Barnaby Joyce was leader in the mid part of
last decade, he promoted David Littleproud, who was quite a
(11:40):
new MP at the time, ahead of many others of
his colleagues into the cabinet. Joyce really rated Littleproud. They
then had a falling out. McCormack took the leadership after
Joyce had an issue with impregnating a staffer who is
now his wife, and then Joyce subsequently toppled McCormack after
a period of severe undermining. So you'd think that McCormack
(12:02):
and Joyce wouldn't have much to do with each other.
But over the last term of Parliament, there was quite
a lot of dissatisfaction with David Littleproud's leadership. And Joyce
and McCormack kind of came together over the last term,
started to chat outside of Parliament. They would see each
other around their electorates. I think they spent a bit
of time with each other in the election campaign.
S1 (12:19):
That's nice. So they had a sort of rapprochement.
S5 (12:21):
They had a rapprochement and they've become kind of friendly.
They both don't have much love for the leader. Neither
of them have the numbers in the party room. This
is crucial. And they acknowledge that Barnaby Joyce certainly doesn't.
S1 (12:32):
He's very, very clearly, um, and obviously not ruled out
because he was asked that question quite directly whether or
not he wants to become the leader again. And he
was pretty. I mean, it was pretty obvious he didn't
rule it out and he didn't deny it at all. Um,
so okay, so we've got these two former enemies or
former nemeses joining together to basically try to topple net zero.
Where does this leave Susan Lee? Obviously, the liberals are
(12:54):
now having a complete policy review of all the policies
they took to the election, which includes the commitment to
net zero by 2050. The nationals are having a separate
review of the net zero by 2050 commitment. But it's
being done, crucially by Matt Canavan, who's one of the
sort of most pro-mining, most anti-climate change members in Parliament.
Is it possible that they're going to end up like
(13:16):
the liberals and the nationals will have a completely different
policy stance?
S5 (13:20):
It's an it's an open question and it's a it's
a real prospect. The National Party process is it's pretty
clear where that's heading. Littleproud yesterday in responding to this,
Joyce and McCormack push, which was revealed in The Australian,
effectively said that the review that Matt Canavan and his
colleague Ross Caddell are conducting will speak to some experts
to justify that net zero was a huge burden on
(13:42):
the economy and to regional communities, and he said he
said net zero was an impossibility. It's burdening us. It's
not good for the country. So it's clear where the
National Party is going Unless something radical changes there, it
looks like they will drop their commitment to net zero,
at least in its current form. The Liberal Party process
is much less clear. There are very strong views on
either side. You had Victorian Senator Jane Hume, a leading moderate.
(14:05):
Potentially leading is a is a is a poor set
of words because she's quite diminished after the election. But
a strong a strong voice on the moderate side say
that net zero is critical to winning seats in the
inner city. It's effectively a proxy for whether a party
is seen as believing in climate change and and viewing
that as an issue of substance.
S1 (14:23):
And wouldn't you also say a proxy, particularly in those
inner metropolitan seats that the liberals absolutely need to win
back to have a path to government? It's sort of
a proxy for whether or not your party is in
keeping with sort of contemporary views on climate change and
also able to access the votes of younger people in particular.
And I would say more broadly, most women and these
(14:47):
are the two cohorts that the that the liberals have
particularly struggled with totally.
S5 (14:51):
And Susan Lee is is of that of a similar view,
as are a lot of her key supporters, including Alex
Hawke and Andrew Bragg and kind of people in the
center and to the moderate side of the Liberal Party.
But then on the other side of the of the
Liberal Party, you know, non non fringe politicians such as
Andrew Hastie, for example, a future leadership contender, no doubt
(15:13):
has been telling colleagues in recent days that the party
does need to dump net zero. Right. And you know,
he's he's not someone who I don't think he's ever
made utterances that indicate that he doesn't believe in climate change.
He's just someone who holds the view that the world
is shifting in a different direction. You see the Trump
administration turn towards fossil fuels, really rocky trajectories to green energy.
In Europe. They see energy prices rising. And they say,
(15:35):
why should we be doing so much when developing countries
like China are going to emit as much greenhouse gas
between now and 2049, I think, as the US has
done in its history. So there there are strongly held views,
even in the mainstream of the Liberal Party.
S1 (15:48):
Yeah. Okay. So there is an there is an argument,
I suppose, or a view within the Liberal Party, that
you could use this as a product differentiation sort of issue,
and you could make it an economic argument entirely, an
economic argument, i.e. that the costs of transitioning to net
zero and transitioning entirely to renewables is going to be
borne too much by the Australian consumer, and particularly people
(16:08):
who can't afford it, like pensioners, pensioners and so on.
So let's talk about the Prime Minister, the labor side now,
because the government is actually going to have to make
its own decision on net zero or our pathway to
net zero pretty soon, in the next few weeks, the
Climate Change Authority will deliver its decision on what the
interim 2035 emissions target reduction target should be. So basically
(16:29):
where we need to be by 2035, if we're even
going to get close to net zero by 2050. Um,
you reported this week that it's probably going to be
in the order of 65 to 75% recommended cuts. How
is Albanese going to handle this politically? It will cost money.
It will cost the consumer. Energy prices will go up,
at least in the short term. Is this a political
(16:50):
risk for the government?
S5 (16:50):
Well, this should be one of the key lines of
attack from the coalition on Labour. That puts the government
in a really tricky position. The transition to green energy
across the world is really bumpy. Australia is doing a
pretty good job at getting towards its 2030 target, but
it probably won't quite get there. 2035 target will be
difficult again. There is. There is difficulty in gaining social
(17:14):
licence for big renewable projects in the country where solar
and wind farms need to go. The backlash was nowhere
near as severe in some of these seats as the
coalition kind of made out before the election, but there's
no doubt that the shift towards a green future is
not easy at all, leads to high prices in the
short or medium term, that there's hope that that will
abate over time. But if the coalition had a clear
(17:36):
policy of its own and wasn't so racked with disunity
about whether, in essence, whether there is man made climate change,
because there's quite a few people on the right of
that party who just don't believe that and don't believe
that anything much should be done about it. If it
wasn't so racked by instability on its own side, it
could mount a clear argument to say the government is
moving too quickly towards a renewable future, and that's costing
(17:58):
Australians money. Now the government has a decision to make
on its 2035 target. Matt Kean, the former Liberal treasurer
of New South Wales, who was handpicked by Chris Bowen
to run the Climate Change Authority, is quite close to
delivering his advice to government, which will, I think give
a range of somewhere in the in the 60s, maybe
up to 70% on that 25% emissions reduction target. The
(18:22):
way this has been seen effectively is that a number
in the 50s would be not ambitious enough and pretty
much be business as usual in terms of the pathway.
Somewhere in the 70s would be quite quick and would
necessitate really quick shifts towards EVs and quicker switching off
of fossil fuel facilities like coal plants, which you see
(18:44):
state governments across the country actually extending the life of
coal plants because of how difficult this transition is. So
there are a whole different bunch of trade offs here.
Tricky politics, hard trade offs, the consensus. And it's still
an expectation at this point. Not not, not not with
much certainty, is that the government will land somewhere in
the 60s. Um, but we'll probably see that in the
(19:04):
next few months. And the politics of this internationally are
important as well, because we're trying to win the next
Cop summit. The big international climate conference in Adelaide. And
we have stiff competition from Turkey, which is yet to
pull out, which is making our winning of that conference harder.
We need to prove to the world that we're serious
about climate change and the Pacific, which we are trying
to draw closer to us and away from China, which
is shifting quickly towards a green economy, despite putting on
(19:28):
a lot of coal plants and other things as well.
Also wants Australia to be ambitious.
S1 (19:31):
Yeah, it's so tricky and it's fascinating. Paul, just casting
ahead to next week, are we going to get our
lovely superannuation tax debate?
S5 (19:39):
We're not. Uh, the government is being pretty coy about
when and how it wants to approach that bit of legislation,
the And the Greens say they want to make some
minor tweaks to this law. They want to reduce the
threshold from 3 million to 2 million and index it
over time. Chalmers, we don't think has had a substantive
Jim Chalmers, we don't believe has had a substantive conversation
(20:01):
with his Greens counterparts. So we don't know when that's
going to come on. There's a chance it all gets
tied into the whatever comes out of this economic roundtable
that's been held in mid-August. So we're a bit none
the wiser.
S1 (20:11):
And yeah, we're very excited about the economic Roundtable. We
love a roundtable on this podcast. Um, it's all going
to be very.
S5 (20:17):
Camera is going to be packed.
S1 (20:18):
Oh, it's.
S5 (20:19):
You won't be able to book a flight.
S1 (20:20):
It's basically like Coachella for for Canberra. It's going to
be huge. It's going to be lit.
S5 (20:25):
You're coming. Right?
S1 (20:26):
Um, maybe I guess so. Um, we'll definitely be talking
about on the podcast. Paul, thank you for joining us.
Welcome home from China. I hope you've adjusted to the
freezing Canberra temperatures.
S5 (20:38):
It's grim. Thank you. Great to talk.
S1 (20:39):
Again. Yep. You too. Bye. Today's episode was produced by
Tammy Mills with technical assistance from Debbie Harrington 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 and exclusives, visit The Age and The Sydney Morning
(21:00):
Herald websites to support our journalism. Subscribe to us by
visiting The Age or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you
for listening. Okay. Thanks, guys. See you.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, July 25th.
This week we witnessed a democratic festival in the form
of the opening of the 48th Parliament.
S2 (00:19):
The call to the honourable the Prime Minister.
S3 (00:21):
Well, thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.
S1 (00:24):
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's dominance of the House of Representatives
is undeniable. A newish opposition leader, Sussan Ley, faces a
huge challenge in cementing her authority over a fractious coalition
set to have a big argument over its climate policy,
with the nationals looking like they're set to ditch any
commitment to net zero emissions by 2050.
S4 (00:46):
By ourselves, that has no effect on the climate. It's insane.
S1 (00:51):
But Albanese also faces tricky terrain. This week, the government
lifted a ban on US beef imports to Australia, leaving
Albanese open to suggestions he's capitulated to pressure from US
President Donald Trump, and soon the PM will have to
decide on the Australian government's interim 2035 emissions reduction target.
Joining me today we have the original gang back together.
(01:13):
We've got Paul Satchell hot off the plane from China
where he was with the PM last week. He is
our very own chief political correspondent. Hello, Paul.
S5 (01:21):
Hey. It was hot off the plane. China was very
hot when we arrived in Chengdu, which is this massive
city in the western province of Sichuan. It was like mid-afternoon,
I think it was 37 or 38 degrees in the air,
and the real feel was 48.
S1 (01:39):
Oh my gosh, I don't even I can't even imagine
what that feels like.
S5 (01:42):
It was the hottest afternoon I've ever felt when we
went to a tennis court in the blaring sun, where
Chinese officials gave very long speeches which needed to be
translated at the same time, so to, to say we
were sweating through our t shirts and yeah, um, and,
and struggling would be an understatement. But it was a
great trip.
S1 (01:59):
It was grueling. Well, we really enjoyed your reporting. Just
quickly behind the scenes, how was Anthony Albanese sort of
demeanor when he was on the trip? Because when he
first became prime minister, there was criticism that he didn't
have a lot of well, he had sort of no
international experience. How is he now in these big diplomatic trips?
Is he more relaxed?
S5 (02:15):
Well, I don't think when he came to the prime ministership,
he was immediately seen as someone who would be comfortable
on the international stage. He's never had a portfolio in
the economic, security or foreign affairs spaces. He's an infrastructure
guy before coming, becoming leader. So I don't think people
thought it would come naturally to him. But I think
to his credit, and he would argue, and the government
(02:36):
does argue, that he's had an unexpected number of wins
on the international stage. There's been this period of stabilization
with China, which is now potentially moving into a phase
of even greater warmth. There's been close knit ties with Indonesia,
which the government is really proud of. A key regional ally.
He's extracted a number of Australians from detention, including Cheng
(02:57):
Lei from China last year.
S1 (02:59):
He got some people out of the clink in Indonesia too,
didn't he?
S5 (03:02):
Yeah he did. So? So there are some things to
hang your hat on there. And on the China trip
he was particularly after the meetings with Chinese officials, including
the president and premier, on the Tuesday, which was, I think,
the third day of the trip. He was in quite
a relaxed and really vibrant mood on the plane back
when I interviewed him, he was wearing a Joy Division
(03:23):
t shirt. He was very relaxed and he was speaking
quite effusively about the trip and not, not not really.
Not really playing into the criticism from conservatives back home
that he might be cuddling up a little too closely
with an autocrat.
S1 (03:34):
Yeah. Um, band t shirt. Albo is relaxed. Albo. Let's
move on to this week. Of course, there is one,
you know, a particular diplomatic international diplomatic trip on which
he has not gone, and a particular ally which has
not invited him to visit. And we all know who
that is. But there was some movement this week on
that front. On Thursday, the news broke that the Australian
(03:54):
government has lifted a ban on beef imports from the
United States. This is something that the Trump administration has
been lobbying for and cross about for quite some time,
that we have had a ban on US beef imports.
Why did we lift this ban now? Is the timing suspicious?
S5 (04:08):
The trade minister, Don Farrell, on Thursday morning insisted there
was nothing suspicious about it. This is just a scientific
review that's been going on for five years, and the
five year culmination just happened to come in the key
period of months when Australia is negotiating with the US.
You want to jump in, Jackie?
S1 (04:25):
Well, and this scientific review is basically about the fact
that Australia has always felt that the United States doesn't
have the right biosecurity structures in place to stop us
getting nasty diseases from cows from the US, specifically mad
cow disease. That's my very, very brief.
S5 (04:41):
And that's that's pretty.
S1 (04:42):
Simplistic understanding of Australian biosecurity laws.
S5 (04:46):
There hasn't there's been there was this long standing US
restriction based on an outbreak of mad cow disease many
years ago. There hasn't actually been a formal ban for
about 5 or 6 years. But no US beef has
been imported into Australia because of these barriers around whether
we can in Australia, abide by our own really strict
(05:07):
traceability rules for cattle that's born in Canada or Mexico
but slaughtered in the US. Our officials have been over
there for many, many months now, trying to test if
the US has put restrictions around their biosecurity that are
sufficient for our own purposes. And in recent months, it's
become clear that there was a positive trajectory in that review.
And when we wrote a story a month ago on
(05:30):
this topic, it was very much framed to us as
a carrot for the US administration. Donald Trump has talked
about how Australia blocks US beef. It's something that annoys him,
and it was pitched to us as something that could
be used in the tariff negotiations reported today by the
Australian Financial Review, that that decision was finalised. But the
government line, whenever a minister stands up to talk on
(05:52):
the issue, they are not going near linking the tariff
talk with the with the biosecurity challenge.
S1 (05:58):
Okay. But let's talk about the realpolitik, because the Prime
Minister has talked a pretty big game in the past,
particularly during the election campaign, about acting always in Australia's
interests when it comes to pressure from the Trump administration.
Have they bowed to pressure here in a way or thought? Look,
we can give them this in the hope that it
will stand us in good stead for broader tariff negotiations
(06:19):
with the US.
S5 (06:20):
We've already seen the coalition come out and the nationals leader,
David Littleproud, who's obviously someone with interest in in on
the cattle side of things and taking the taking the
side of farmers, they've come out and called this an
act of appeasement of Donald Trump and that the Prime
Minister is trying to play catch up in the relationship
with the US. He hasn't met Donald Trump, and now
he's reached for a an easy win that compromises Australian agriculture.
(06:44):
I think the government would say that that criticism is
over the top, that this was low hanging fruit where
the government had a had had an option to give
the US something that it wanted, something that plays into
Trump's personal set of grievances. He's he's a guy who's,
you know, spent part of his campaign flipping burgers at McDonald's.
He loves McDonald's burgers. Australian beef is used in US burgers,
(07:07):
so he would wonder why they can't sell beef into Australia. Yeah,
this is something that might play into the way the
president thinks about the world. To cut a deal. And
the Australians are pretty confident that it's not something that's
going to hurt our biosecurity rules. I think they would
argue this is low hanging fruit that gives us a
little win or a little chance of a win.
S1 (07:23):
It's burger diplomacy.
S5 (07:25):
Burger diplomacy.
S1 (07:26):
We found the we found the soft spot in Trump's
otherwise very hard exterior.
S5 (07:31):
Panders to cattle.
S1 (07:33):
These little Mexican cows that we're going to be eating. Okay,
let's talk about the pomp and ceremony of parliament opening
this week. It was the 48th Parliament opened, and that's
always a few special days in Canberra. The Governor-General addresses
both houses.
S6 (07:46):
Blackrod. Please let the members of the House of Representatives
know that I desire their attendance in the Senate.
S1 (07:52):
The lower house MPs go to the Senate and they
all crowd in together on the benches. The usher of
the Black Rod comes into the house and grabs them all.
S6 (08:00):
Mr. speaker, the usher of the Black Rod, with a
message from Her Excellency.
S1 (08:04):
The have that they do that thing where they pretend
to drag the speaker to the chair. There are all
these beautiful ancient traditions from our British parliamentary history. But
I suppose the big story of the week for this
48th Parliament is the enormous disparity between the numbers on
the government bench and the numbers on the opposition bench.
So I just wanted to ask you about how that
(08:25):
played out atmospherically, and also how Susan Lee went as
the opposition leader in her first sort of formal week
in that role in the Parliament.
S5 (08:35):
Yeah, everyone had been flagging in the lead up to these,
to this first week that the optics of the huge
government benches and the diminished oppositions would be quite striking. And,
you know, it's almost a cliche to say it now,
but it really was. The feeling in the building this
week is really palpable around the opposition just not having
(08:55):
the same heft as last term. It lacks a figurehead
leader in Peter Dutton, who is clearly, um, hugely discredited
now because of the election result. But for much of
last term at least, the press gallery political bubble narrative
was that he was ascendant. Parliament felt like a place
where the opposition would often have the government on the
(09:16):
back foot. They were nowhere near as small as they
are now, and the Prime Minister had some really tough weeks. Instead,
this week we have what feels really like a procession
for the government's massive win in May. There's three bills
on the agenda, all of which are relatively non-controversial and
popular for labor, being around, um, boosting childcare safety penalty
rates and the HECS 20% fee cut. And the government
(09:39):
made a call to not even talk about the contentious
element of its agenda around superannuation tax. They're deferring that
for another sitting fortnight because what they want to do
in this fortnight is get through these bits of legislation
which they key popular promises, as well as do all
of the maiden speeches for the new members. So it
really does feel like a moment where the government is
(10:00):
basking in its win and the opposition and talking. So
to have such a long answer, but talking to some
of the opposition members this week in private, this this sounds, um,
sounds terrible to say, but, you know, they're in this
building and I think some of them are questioning their
place in politics. They're wondering, you know, where they go next.
They're wondering if they're in the same situation three years
(10:21):
from now, after the next election, whether they've made the
right choice in their career. There are some really existential
questions being asked in the coalition environment.
S1 (10:28):
Yeah, none of which I think is good for democracy.
I mean, I know that's sort of quite an earnest
thing to say, but democracy does thrive and the Parliament
does thrive when you have a really strong opposition. Let's
move on to the opposition, because whatever tentative peace there
may have been at the beginning of the parliamentary week,
it was quickly broken by Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack,
(10:48):
both former nationals leaders, who made it pretty clear that
they're going to make David Littleproud's life difficult with their
opposition to net zero by 2050. Paul, tell us about
the mischief that they were making.
S5 (11:02):
Yeah, quite the way to start the first sitting day
of Parliament by those two former nationals leaders.
S7 (11:08):
The new dream team, the dream couple, the member for
New England, the member for Riverina are out there this
morning backing each other in, the member for Riverina said
on The Kieran Gilbert Show where virile and we're out there.
S5 (11:20):
McCormack and Joyce, obviously, both of them former deputy prime
ministers under the last coalition government, they've been pushed to
the outer fringes of the National Party by the current leader,
David Littleproud. There's so much personal history between this trio.
When Barnaby Joyce was leader in the mid part of
last decade, he promoted David Littleproud, who was quite a
(11:40):
new MP at the time, ahead of many others of
his colleagues into the cabinet. Joyce really rated Littleproud. They
then had a falling out. McCormack took the leadership after
Joyce had an issue with impregnating a staffer who is
now his wife, and then Joyce subsequently toppled McCormack after
a period of severe undermining. So you'd think that McCormack
(12:02):
and Joyce wouldn't have much to do with each other.
But over the last term of Parliament, there was quite
a lot of dissatisfaction with David Littleproud's leadership. And Joyce
and McCormack kind of came together over the last term,
started to chat outside of Parliament. They would see each
other around their electorates. I think they spent a bit
of time with each other in the election campaign.
S1 (12:19):
That's nice. So they had a sort of rapprochement.
S5 (12:21):
They had a rapprochement and they've become kind of friendly.
They both don't have much love for the leader. Neither
of them have the numbers in the party room. This
is crucial. And they acknowledge that Barnaby Joyce certainly doesn't.
S1 (12:32):
He's very, very clearly, um, and obviously not ruled out
because he was asked that question quite directly whether or
not he wants to become the leader again. And he
was pretty. I mean, it was pretty obvious he didn't
rule it out and he didn't deny it at all. Um,
so okay, so we've got these two former enemies or
former nemeses joining together to basically try to topple net zero.
Where does this leave Susan Lee? Obviously, the liberals are
(12:54):
now having a complete policy review of all the policies
they took to the election, which includes the commitment to
net zero by 2050. The nationals are having a separate
review of the net zero by 2050 commitment. But it's
being done, crucially by Matt Canavan, who's one of the
sort of most pro-mining, most anti-climate change members in Parliament.
Is it possible that they're going to end up like
(13:16):
the liberals and the nationals will have a completely different
policy stance?
S5 (13:20):
It's an it's an open question and it's a it's
a real prospect. The National Party process is it's pretty
clear where that's heading. Littleproud yesterday in responding to this,
Joyce and McCormack push, which was revealed in The Australian,
effectively said that the review that Matt Canavan and his
colleague Ross Caddell are conducting will speak to some experts
to justify that net zero was a huge burden on
(13:42):
the economy and to regional communities, and he said he
said net zero was an impossibility. It's burdening us. It's
not good for the country. So it's clear where the
National Party is going Unless something radical changes there, it
looks like they will drop their commitment to net zero,
at least in its current form. The Liberal Party process
is much less clear. There are very strong views on
either side. You had Victorian Senator Jane Hume, a leading moderate.
(14:05):
Potentially leading is a is a is a poor set
of words because she's quite diminished after the election. But
a strong a strong voice on the moderate side say
that net zero is critical to winning seats in the
inner city. It's effectively a proxy for whether a party
is seen as believing in climate change and and viewing
that as an issue of substance.
S1 (14:23):
And wouldn't you also say a proxy, particularly in those
inner metropolitan seats that the liberals absolutely need to win
back to have a path to government? It's sort of
a proxy for whether or not your party is in
keeping with sort of contemporary views on climate change and
also able to access the votes of younger people in particular.
And I would say more broadly, most women and these
(14:47):
are the two cohorts that the that the liberals have
particularly struggled with totally.
S5 (14:51):
And Susan Lee is is of that of a similar view,
as are a lot of her key supporters, including Alex
Hawke and Andrew Bragg and kind of people in the
center and to the moderate side of the Liberal Party.
But then on the other side of the of the
Liberal Party, you know, non non fringe politicians such as
Andrew Hastie, for example, a future leadership contender, no doubt
(15:13):
has been telling colleagues in recent days that the party
does need to dump net zero. Right. And you know,
he's he's not someone who I don't think he's ever
made utterances that indicate that he doesn't believe in climate change.
He's just someone who holds the view that the world
is shifting in a different direction. You see the Trump
administration turn towards fossil fuels, really rocky trajectories to green energy.
In Europe. They see energy prices rising. And they say,
(15:35):
why should we be doing so much when developing countries
like China are going to emit as much greenhouse gas
between now and 2049, I think, as the US has
done in its history. So there there are strongly held views,
even in the mainstream of the Liberal Party.
S1 (15:48):
Yeah. Okay. So there is an there is an argument,
I suppose, or a view within the Liberal Party, that
you could use this as a product differentiation sort of issue,
and you could make it an economic argument entirely, an
economic argument, i.e. that the costs of transitioning to net
zero and transitioning entirely to renewables is going to be
borne too much by the Australian consumer, and particularly people
(16:08):
who can't afford it, like pensioners, pensioners and so on.
So let's talk about the Prime Minister, the labor side now,
because the government is actually going to have to make
its own decision on net zero or our pathway to
net zero pretty soon, in the next few weeks, the
Climate Change Authority will deliver its decision on what the
interim 2035 emissions target reduction target should be. So basically
(16:29):
where we need to be by 2035, if we're even
going to get close to net zero by 2050. Um,
you reported this week that it's probably going to be
in the order of 65 to 75% recommended cuts. How
is Albanese going to handle this politically? It will cost money.
It will cost the consumer. Energy prices will go up,
at least in the short term. Is this a political
(16:50):
risk for the government?
S5 (16:50):
Well, this should be one of the key lines of
attack from the coalition on Labour. That puts the government
in a really tricky position. The transition to green energy
across the world is really bumpy. Australia is doing a
pretty good job at getting towards its 2030 target, but
it probably won't quite get there. 2035 target will be
difficult again. There is. There is difficulty in gaining social
(17:14):
licence for big renewable projects in the country where solar
and wind farms need to go. The backlash was nowhere
near as severe in some of these seats as the
coalition kind of made out before the election, but there's
no doubt that the shift towards a green future is
not easy at all, leads to high prices in the
short or medium term, that there's hope that that will
abate over time. But if the coalition had a clear
(17:36):
policy of its own and wasn't so racked with disunity
about whether, in essence, whether there is man made climate change,
because there's quite a few people on the right of
that party who just don't believe that and don't believe
that anything much should be done about it. If it
wasn't so racked by instability on its own side, it
could mount a clear argument to say the government is
moving too quickly towards a renewable future, and that's costing
(17:58):
Australians money. Now the government has a decision to make
on its 2035 target. Matt Kean, the former Liberal treasurer
of New South Wales, who was handpicked by Chris Bowen
to run the Climate Change Authority, is quite close to
delivering his advice to government, which will, I think give
a range of somewhere in the in the 60s, maybe
up to 70% on that 25% emissions reduction target. The
(18:22):
way this has been seen effectively is that a number
in the 50s would be not ambitious enough and pretty
much be business as usual in terms of the pathway.
Somewhere in the 70s would be quite quick and would
necessitate really quick shifts towards EVs and quicker switching off
of fossil fuel facilities like coal plants, which you see
(18:44):
state governments across the country actually extending the life of
coal plants because of how difficult this transition is. So
there are a whole different bunch of trade offs here.
Tricky politics, hard trade offs, the consensus. And it's still
an expectation at this point. Not not, not not with
much certainty, is that the government will land somewhere in
the 60s. Um, but we'll probably see that in the
(19:04):
next few months. And the politics of this internationally are
important as well, because we're trying to win the next
Cop summit. The big international climate conference in Adelaide. And
we have stiff competition from Turkey, which is yet to
pull out, which is making our winning of that conference harder.
We need to prove to the world that we're serious
about climate change and the Pacific, which we are trying
to draw closer to us and away from China, which
is shifting quickly towards a green economy, despite putting on
(19:28):
a lot of coal plants and other things as well.
Also wants Australia to be ambitious.
S1 (19:31):
Yeah, it's so tricky and it's fascinating. Paul, just casting
ahead to next week, are we going to get our
lovely superannuation tax debate?
S5 (19:39):
We're not. Uh, the government is being pretty coy about
when and how it wants to approach that bit of legislation,
the And the Greens say they want to make some
minor tweaks to this law. They want to reduce the
threshold from 3 million to 2 million and index it
over time. Chalmers, we don't think has had a substantive
Jim Chalmers, we don't believe has had a substantive conversation
(20:01):
with his Greens counterparts. So we don't know when that's
going to come on. There's a chance it all gets
tied into the whatever comes out of this economic roundtable
that's been held in mid-August. So we're a bit none
the wiser.
S1 (20:11):
And yeah, we're very excited about the economic Roundtable. We
love a roundtable on this podcast. Um, it's all going
to be very.
S5 (20:17):
Camera is going to be packed.
S1 (20:18):
Oh, it's.
S5 (20:19):
You won't be able to book a flight.
S1 (20:20):
It's basically like Coachella for for Canberra. It's going to
be huge. It's going to be lit.
S5 (20:25):
You're coming. Right?
S1 (20:26):
Um, maybe I guess so. Um, we'll definitely be talking
about on the podcast. Paul, thank you for joining us.
Welcome home from China. I hope you've adjusted to the
freezing Canberra temperatures.
S5 (20:38):
It's grim. Thank you. Great to talk.
S1 (20:39):
Again. Yep. You too. Bye. Today's episode was produced by
Tammy Mills with technical assistance from Debbie Harrington 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 and exclusives, visit The Age and The Sydney Morning
(21:00):
Herald websites to support our journalism. Subscribe to us by
visiting The Age or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you
for listening. Okay. Thanks, guys. See you.
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