Steve Price: Australia correspondent on National Day of Action, Labour polls, bushfires

Thousands of Australians have collectively rallied in a National Day of Action in protest of conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

This comes following Israeli strikes into Lebanon, which killed 30 Hezbollah leaders including Hassan Nasrallah.

Australian correspondent Steve Price tells Heather du Plessis-Allan the turnout was the strongest Australia has seen in a long time.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
AUSI correspondent Steve Prices, that's morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Steve, very good morning to you have it right.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
The protests, the Prohamas and pro Lebanon protests, how big
were they?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
They will be the biggest that we've seen for months,
and there are some disturbing images there yesterday. I'm talking
about Sydney and Melbourne. Both cities have a very large
Lebanese population, migrants from Lebanon in particular, and the rallies
we've been used to probably numbering one hundreds each Saturday Sunday,
but this was more in the thousand. But it has

(00:29):
forced Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, a senior minister obviously
in the Albaneze government, to come out and say, look,
I'll consider canceling the visas of anyone who incites discord
in Australia. Now, Burke holds a seat that has a
very large Muslim population and he's been very reluctant to
go public on his views on whether these protests should

(00:50):
take place or not. So why are we so disturbed
about this given that these protests happen just about every weekend. Well,
when you see the images of masked men carrying framed
photographs of the Hezbala leader Asan Israela who obviously was
taken out in that bomb attack in southern Lebanon. Over

(01:11):
the last few days, you really think to yourself, am
I still in Australia? I mean, why masked men or
masked anybody are allowed to march in protests through the
streets of Australia's beyond me anyway. But they were chanting
and filmed and there is video of this, you can
look it up on the Australian newspaper's website. They were
chanting labak Yazraela. That's in Arabic, which translate to at

(01:36):
your service Nasraela or ere i am. I think a
lot of Australians in general, when you look at those
images today and you watch that video and you see
it reported on TV news, that would say to themselves,
why are these Pronzraela people in Australia and what have
we done? I mean, who's come here? It is already

(01:59):
a major about what visas were issued and what visas
weren't after the October seven attacks and obviously the Israeli
reaction in Palestine in Gaza. But I think a lot
of Australiners will be shaking their heads today and saying,
what the hell's going on?

Speaker 1 (02:14):
What's it going to take to get a visa canceled?
How bad does the behavior have to be?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, we do have legislation in place, federal legislation in
place about incitingvitons. It's a very loose piece of legislation
and this government in particular seems reluctant to use it.
But you could use it. I mean, why is it
legal to walk down a street holding a photograph of
a dead terrorist leader wearing a mask? I mean, I

(02:42):
just don't get that. And you can't walk into a
bank wearing a motorcycle helmet. Why are you allowed to
be masked in a protest? It makes no sense.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Better few people asking that question, Hey, what do you
make of that news?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Pop? Well, it tells me that the Labor government is
in trouble and that clearly, and Mike and I have
this conversation all the time. The election will not now
be this year, clearly, it's going to be as late
as possible next year, which is probably going to mean May.
But it looks like older voters, those between fifty to
sixty four, have turned swiftly against labor because of cost

(03:18):
of living. I mean the vote in New South Wales
now has the primary vote of Labor down to thirty percent.
That would be an election losing number. The Coalition is
now starting to take a lead in WA as well,
so we've got WA in New South Wales and Queensland
that would be enough seats for the Coalition to win. Obviously,
in Victoria, Labor it is still got its nose in

(03:39):
front two Party preferred, it's still fifty to fifty. But
the government in particular would be most concerned about the
fact that at fifty to sixty four year olds are
turning against labor and you've got to put that down
principally the cost of living, and people still have some
real concerns about the pace at which green energy transition

(03:59):
is happening. Anthony Alberzi himself as a leader, his performance
is still very poor and his leadership at the moment
doesn't look great. So I'd say in summary that Labor
would now hope that they're going to get probably stumble
towards Christmas, get through the Christmas holiday period, make some
big announcements in the new year. Hopefully they're an inch

(04:19):
straight cut and they might be able to struggle their
way to a narrow election victory sometime in main next year.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Steve, what do you reckon? I mean, if alban is
at last I saw albanize he's still leading Dutton in
preferred prime minister. And if he's still leading Dutton, does
that not kind of assist Labor or is it possible?
Is it possible that Dutton wins even though he's unpopular.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, the latter, I think is a great assessment, because
in our system, you just got to win seats. I mean,
it's not a presidential contest. It's a matter of you've
got to pick up enough seats to get a majority
in the House of Representatives. My great fear as always
been the possibility of a minority government. We hope that
doesn't have but if you look at the seats and

(05:01):
in the states where the swing is on, you can
make an argument, a reasonably good argument. Right now the
coalition is sitting where they could possibly sneak over the
line or they could force Labor into minority government. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Interesting, Steve, Thank you so much for chatting to us
through that stuff that. Steve price Ossie corresponded.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
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