Steve Price: Australian Correspondent on what the polls are predicting in Australian election and why BBQ's are banned in Victoria

The Australian election has been called for 3 May and the polls have swung in favour of Labor. 

Cost of living is going to the booths with voters and Anthony Albanese's Government is promising tax cuts. 

Peter Dutton needs to win 22 seats to get a majority government. 

Australian Correspondent Steve Price talks to Mike Hosking about the election and why barbecues are banned in Victoria, 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To Australia. We go. Stephen, my friend, how are you good?

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Very good? Thank you. The elections up and running. I
told you to be announced late last week.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Am I correct in my observation and watching the Warriors
last night. And I only referenced this because both blokes
started their campaign in Queensland. It's just Queensland and New
South Wales had a miserable summer weather. Wys in terms of.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Rain horrendous, particularly Sydney. Sydney's had more rain across somemer
than I can ever remember. I mean, people joke and
laugh about Melbourne weather, but yes, Queensland in particulars had
really bad. I mean, obviously we had the cyclone, but
in outback Queensland there's floods up there that are swept away.
On one property alone, four thousand sheep in the last week.

(00:42):
The rain has been persistent right across the Eastern seaboard,
particularly in those two states. So yes, it's been very wet.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Okay, so I just saw them start and it was wet.
And these poles I've mentioned on a big swing to labor.
Wonder you believe them? And two if you do, why.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I'm not sure that I do. Believe them, because the
campaign's only been up and running, as we now know,
since Friday, and so most of the things that were
announced that week, including the five dollars a week tax
cut way off in the distance, which was the centerpiece
of the labor budget, and then the fuel exile has
been cut in half by the Coalition if they were

(01:23):
to win. I don't think that's settled in people's minds yet.
They've not got their head around it. But when you
do get your head around it, clearly, taking your trade
a ute into a service station four times a week
and filling it up because you're doing a job that's
one hundred k away, you're going to save a huge
amount of money. If the petroex size is cut by
twenty five percent, that's going to save on average about

(01:46):
seventeen or eighteen dollars per tank, and so that's a
meaningful saving. Now that's aimed by the coalitions squarely at
the people who live in the outer suburbs, particularly of Sydney,
Melbourne and even Brisbane, because their longer commutes me and
they use more fuel. So I think once that takes hold,
there may indeed be a bit of a reversal but
this is not good news for the coalition. They start

(02:08):
the election on the back foot. It gives Anthony Albanzi
a lot of confidence. Newspoll has now got Labor at
the same position it was when it won the election
in twenty twenty two. And Peter Dutton, let's be clear,
he's got to win twenty two seats twenty two seats
net to get himself into majority government, so he doesn't
want to see a news poll like this. Labour's primary

(02:30):
votes back at thirteen percent, Anthony Albanese's popularity has gone
up and a two party preferred Labour's now in front
fifty one to forty nine. So it is not good
news by any measure for the coalition.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Interesting the numbers. One of the polls that you go
one said a median estimate for Labor of seventy five
seats lower estimate sixty nine, upper estimate eighty. If they
end up they need seventy six. Of course, if they
end up with seventy five, which is the media, and
that's as good as a win, isn't it In terms
of yes, it's minority and you still need somebody. But
I mean, you'd be pretty happy you were that given
what could have been, wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
You Yeah, you'd be very happy and you can consider this.
There's currently in the Australian Parliament sixteen people on the
cross bench. Now that includes a bunch of Teals who
will retain their seats like Wentworth in the eastern sobs
of Sydney. That seat was stay as a Teal seat,
and there's a couple in Victoria that will probably stay

(03:22):
and they may lose a couple, but you can negotiate
yourself very well into minority government without dealing with the
Greens on a seventy five seat when it's a big
ass for Peter Dutton. And one good news one update
is that we've just found out that one of the independents,
women called Rebecca Sharky, who holds the seat of Mayo
in the Adelaide Hills, used to be held by a

(03:44):
former Foreign min Australia Center Downer. She said the first
person she would call if there was a Home Parliament
and support would be Peter Dutton. So he's got one
on the cross bench at least. There's a couple of
disaffected Liberals that sit on the cross bench who you
would think would put their hands up for Peter Dutton.
But there's a long way to go in this thing.
We're are only into. Really what is week one?

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Do you see the possibility that the election can be
won or lost within this campaign? In other words, what
they say or don't say, or mistakes or whatever could
swing it or is this a fore gone conclusion.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Oh no, it absolutely can be won. During the campaign.
You might recall the Bill Shorton versus Scott Morrison campaign
where Bill Shorton was the late our mazere to win.
Everyone had him over the line and then you had it.
During the campaign, the whole question of energy and electricity
prices was front and center and Queensland turned on labor

(04:41):
and voted green and Bill Shorton suddenly lost that campaign.
That's why Albanizi and Dutton were in Queensland. There's three
seats on the fringes of suburban Brisbane that are Green
and both sides think that they can snatch one, two
or all of those three seats back off the Green.
So every Australian election be one or lost. During a campaign,

(05:02):
it just takes one stumble. People focus on it and
then go. Your leads gone completely.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
This banning of barbecues and Victoria is this one to
do with gas? And two is it real?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
How do you gas? It's all about gas. So this
crazy government here says, if you build a new house
in Victoria now, you can't connect to gas. You must
connect to electricity. Your hot water's got to be electric.
You've got to have a convention stovetop. You can't have
gas no more in your kitchen. You can't put in
a gas oven. And so everyone is completely beside themselves

(05:35):
on that. But beyond that, if your gas hot water
breaks down, you've got to replace it with an electric one.
If your gas stove were to breakdown, you have to
replace it with an electric one. Barbecues have always been
sacrosint but now we learn today that within the regulations
where this new bill comes in, if you have your
barbecue connected to the gas mains, like a lot of people,

(05:56):
do you know, you're not going down to the petrol
station to get a swap and go gas bottle. If
you're connected to the mains and something happens, your barbecue
wears out, as barbecues do, and you've got to change
it over. You're no longer going to be able to
reconnect to mains gas you'll have to make your barbecue electric.
I refuse good cook on an electric barbecue. They don't work.

(06:18):
You cannot cook a decent steak on an electric barbecue.
Don't tell me you can. All those stupid things you
have in parks around the world where you put in
a coin, they're all electric. Can you cook decent electric barbecue?
I defy anyone to say they can.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Exactly, And just said to Ellen would surely know that,
wouldn't she, or wouldn't she have the slightest idea.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
She'd have no idea. I mean, I wouldn't imagine she'd
be a barbecue type of lady.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
To me on mate, We'll see Wednesday appreciates the Price
out of Australia.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
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