Dennis Shanahan: The Australian national editor on the general election called for May

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called the 2025 general election for 3 May.

Housing costs and economic concerns are what voters will be bringing to the polls.

National editor of The Australian Dennis Shanahan talks to Ryan Bridge about what's to come. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Across the Tasman. The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is

(00:03):
called the twenty twenty five general election that the Aussies
officially now heading to the polls on May the third.
Economic concerns, housing costs. When we talk about this quite
a lot on this program. Just what the issues are
over in Australia, you'll be familiar with them. Dennis Shanahan
is the national editor at The Australian. He's with me tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hi, Dennis, Good day, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Great to have you on. So campaigning well underway and
I mean it's been underway for a while now, hasn't it.
But what's your sense of where the landscape is at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Look, I think that and you're right, the campaigning has
been under way for quite a while. That the Prime
Minister really started in January and we haven't stopped. Now
we're what we're getting The message here clearly is that
the campaign's going to be fought over cost of living.
But the outlook is that the polls are showing that

(00:58):
the Prime Minister is likely most likely to lead Labor
into minority government. So that's where we're likely to go
because he has a very small majority. There's a bit
of a swing against him, but by the same token,
the Opposition, led by Peter Dutton, has to win an

(01:19):
enormous number of seats to try and form government. So
at this stage, at the beginning of the five week campaign,
the outlook is most likely for the return of a
minority Labor government.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Which and how much of that is based on some
of the elections we've seen at state level. I mean
there were some around Perth and Wisdom Australia and the
Dunton you know, the Liberals not performing as well as
perhaps some might have thought, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, that's true. But of course, unlike New Zealand, we
have state and federal elections, and Australian voters can really
distinguish when they go to the polls. Sometimes there are
elections at state and federal level quite close together, and
we will have that is the case in Western Australia

(02:11):
where the Liberals have been basically wiped out in the
last two elections in West Australia and state elections, but
the federal vote can sometimes be quite dramatically different, and
I think that we can't take too much of a
guide from state elections. We take an overall view, and

(02:36):
I think that when it comes down to it, Western
Australia was extremely important in the last election because that's
where Labor picked up a lot of its seats, and
of course the Liberals lost to the Teel independence the
climate change independence on the East Coast, and that was
really the two deciding factors in the last election. This election,

(03:00):
Labor is hoping to hold on to its seats in
Western Australia, but could lose one or two there. But
the real decision, the real battle states are going to
be New South Wales and Victoria, because in Victoria Labor
is a bit on the nose and in New South

(03:20):
Wales there's a lot of feeling in some traditional Labor
seats against some of the renewable policies of the Labor government,
not just the costs of energy, but the actual impact
on the electorates of offshore wind farms and rewiring the
nation to provide all of those twenty millions of meters

(03:46):
of wiring to make the transition and transmission to renewable energy.
So yes, there have been signs that the Liberals were
in trouble at the state level. The same thing in
South Australia as well. But what we are seeing is
a national shift to the Liberal Party since the last election,

(04:13):
quite a big shift since the last election. And Labor
is still at an historically low level of primary vote
in the polls.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
And Donald Trump not being made about Trump and his
influence on this campaign, or not his influence but his
effect I suppose. And the tariffs that are coming in,
and you've had Malcolm Turnbull at play and now Anthony
Alberanezi comparing Dutton to Trump. How's that being received?

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I will look, I think there will obviously be a
Trump impact on the federal election. The tariffs are the
main point. There's no doubt that already the Australians have
seen the likely imposition of tariffs and the next decision.
We're getting a few signals from the US that may

(05:03):
not be as bad as initially shown, but in any case,
there is going to be a definite US trade tariff
effect on the election. I think that Anthony Albernese has
done not too badly given his political differences with Donald Trump.
We certainly haven't done any worse than anyone else around

(05:26):
the world. And look, I think in reality, while Peter
Dutton is probably more akin to Trump's Republican flavor. It's
unlikely that it can do a great deal else But
the real factor of Trump is on the question of security.
It's on orcus, It's on the whether he will commit

(05:48):
to the continuing nuclear submarine program, which is huge, which
is part of what he is demanding Australia and other
nations do, and that is increasing their defense spending. And
it's also all about whether the Trump will continue to
stand up in the Pacific against China. And that's particularly

(06:09):
the case after the circumnavigation of the Australian continent by
the Chinese live firing fleet, which was very unpopular, made
a real impact in Australia. So I think Trump will
have an effect, but overall its cost of living.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, it's the local issues. Dennis. Thank you so much
for that analysis, Dennis Shanahan. He's the national editor at
The Australian and canber For more from Hither Duplessy Allen
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