Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the picks to lead the Liberal Party after election loss

The Liberal leadership race is on, following Peter Dutton's sweeping loss in the Australian election.

Angus Taylor and Sussan Ley lead the pack as potential contenders - but neither one has been publicly nominated.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says Ley has gained more attention - but it's unclear if sections of the party will get behind a female leader.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And finally, a woman in Michigan whose cat went missing
in twenty twenty two has been reunited with the cat.
The cat's name is Buddy. Buddy turned up outside of McDonald's,
about fifteen k's from his home, three years after he
went missing. The owner says she's still going to get
let Buddy roam around outside because he's a cat, that's
what cats do, but wisely she's got a microchip. Come

(00:21):
back to the cat issue. Shortly, Murray Old's Ossie correspondent
is with us, Hey, mus why.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Are you laughing? Wow? I just our buddy's turned up
and the brain box is saying, yeah, he's fine to
go outside. Yeah, good on your What else are you
going to do, Mauz, If it's not a dog, leave
him inside?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Have you ever owned a cat?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, We've had plenty of cats.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Did you leave them inside?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
No, don't be a mentalist.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Geez, you want to come home and the cat's just weed?
What a nightmare?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So the caucus meeting, the first one is going to
be held tomorrow, is it?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
No? I understand it's on this afternoon. Need some of
them back to Camberra today. It might just be a
bit of a team massaging with the full Cook caucus tomorrow,
but certainly Labor MPs have gathered. I understand that all
the entire Labor Caucus is in Canberra, and you know
there are still nine seats too close to call. But

(01:14):
Anthony Albanezi now has the task in his hands are
forming a new ministry. And the way it works with
the Australian Labor Party heather that the factions will nominate
who they want to get up into the ministry and
then the ministry is allocated by the Prime Minister. So
you would imagine someone like Jim Chalmers, who comes from
the Moderate faction, he's the Treasurer. He will stay on

(01:37):
that job. He's going to maintain. For example, Penny Wong
is another moderate, although some say she's a bit of
a lefty, and she's going to maintain her role as
Foreign Minister. And so it goes. You know, all the
talk coming out of the Labor camp. We've got an
embarrassment of riches, talent overflowing all this stuff. They've also
got would you believe ninety one seats. They went into

(01:59):
this election with a one seat majority. They've got Labour's
got ninety one. The coalition is just limped to forty today.
Now they may get one or two more, but that
is a massive drubbing anyway you cut it. You've got
it's one hundred and fifty seat Parliament and Labour's got
over a ninety seats. So certainly Albanezi, now buttressed by

(02:22):
a massive numerical advantage, is going to be being urged
you to absolutely go hard on reform. And he's already
announced his first obaseas trip will be once again as
he did in his first term as Prime minister. He's
going back up to Indonesia early next week after the
allocation of ministry. So he's making a very very clear

(02:42):
Asia is his horizon, that's his focus. And with a
massive market up there, what is the two hundred and
eighty million people. They need to eat and they need
to have stuff that Australia makes them sell. So that's
where he's going first.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
So where are we, by the way, with replacing Dutton.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well, there's a leadership battle on. As you know, Angus
Taylor has got supporters. He's a hard right liberal, you know,
he is absolutely hard right. He being blamed by many
though for a dreadful election campaign performance. There was absolutely
no attempt to sell any coherent economic message, and that
would have been politics one O one Are you better

(03:21):
off now than you there were three years ago that
didn't really resonate because of the Trump factor, but certainly
they could have pushed the economic narrative. That's where the
traditional bread and butter liberal values have been better economic managers.
None of that was seen. But many don't want Taylor
because they don't want the party to go further to
the right. You will not govern this country from the right.
You've got to be in the sensible center, and that's

(03:44):
why they're pushing. Others are pushing for a unity ticket
involving the moderate Susan Lee, who interestingly changed her name
from Susan with one S in the middle to a
double S when she was in her early twenties. I
think from memory because numerology said it was a good idea.
She's a parliamentary veteran, she's a moderis I say, she's female,
and she is articulate, and these are things that clearly

(04:07):
the Bloken suits, you know, all the fellows and suits, weren't.
So they're pushing her with Dan Teyan, who is a
former minister in a Liberal government. They are pushing the
lead Tea and ticket. There a lot of people in
the Liberal parties simply cannot imagine. They can't countenance in
a million years a female Liberal leader who could actually

(04:28):
unite the party and strike in a new direction. You know,
they will not be able to govern Heather from the
right of Australian politics, it's a small to the rump
and it's dying off.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Mus I'm fascinated by this numerology thing, but I'm going
to consult Google rather than force you to explain it
to me. Are you how are you how are you
schooled up on numerology?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Negative? Luke Skywalker Negative?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Thank god, that's the right answer. Why is this mushroom
chef trial not going to run as long as we thought?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I know it's fascinating viewing, right, but there's stuff happening
behind the scenes. Now. The judge, that justice, mister Justice Bale,
did not spell out precisely what's happening, but the stuff
happening behind the scenes that he told the jury at
the start of this it was going to be a
six week trial, as you mentioned. Now he's told jurors
today that it could be over much much shorter timeline,

(05:25):
and for example, he says, you know, there's no need
to come back on Monday. Maybe we'll see you on Tuesday.
So maybe there's some sort of plea bargaining behind the scenes.
Aaron Patterson, of course, has denied three counts of murders
that it was a tragic accident that she killed her
x in laws and an auntie. She says it was
absolutely an accident. The prosecution begs to differ, so it's

(05:48):
got Look, this is fascinated Australia. I suspect fascinated listeners
and viewers around the world. This matter. Goodness me, it's
absolutely intriguing, isn't it. But it could be over long
before it was supposed to be and I think we'll
all be poorer for it.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Mauz, I think so too. Thank you very much, really appreciated.
That's Murray Old's Australia correspondent. Right here we go. So
Susan Lee who added the extra s into her name.
She says, I read about this numerology theory that if
you add the numbers that match the letters in your name,
you can change your personality. I worked out that if
you added an extra and S, I would have an

(06:26):
incredibly exciting, interesting life and nothing would ever be boring.
It's that simple, and once I'd added the S, it
was really hard to take away. Now, if you think
that sounds crazy, not so. According to Australia's leading numerology
Fong Shwe and color expert Chris Brazil. Brazil has been
researching and practicing numerology for more than twenty years, and this,
by the way, was about ten years ago, so it's

(06:47):
now thirty years. She has seen people transform their lives
and companies transform their fortunes by simply changing their names.
When it comes to numerology and names, what happens is
the letters in your name and their corresponding numbers must
match your birth date, and when they don't match up,
it means you carry a birth emotion which is projected
on you by your mother and father at the time

(07:07):
of your birth. Yeah, she should be the liberal leader.
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