April 30, 2025 • 21 mins
In a matter of days, we’ll know which party has formed government and who the next leader of Australia will be. On today’s episode, we are going to give you the lowdown on who the two people vying for the top role are - Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton. From their time before parliament to what they’ve pushed for inside of Canberra, we’ll explain everything you need to know before the weekend.
Hosts: Zara Seidler and Emma Gillespie
Producer: Elliot Lawry
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Dahlias.
Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,
the first of May.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm Zara Sidler, I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, we are officially at the point to end of
the election campaign.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Wowie.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I don't know how many times I'm going to say
that this week, but hey we're here. In a matter
of days, we're going to know which party is formed
government and who the next Leader of Australia will be
and so on today's episode, I thought it would be
helpful to give a bit of a lowdown on who
the two people lying for the top.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Job actually are.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
You've heard their names many times before, Anthony Albertezi and
Peter Dudden, from their time before Parliament to what they've
pushed for inside of Canberra. We're going to take you
through everything you need to know before the weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
All right, I think this is going to be a
really helpful one for a lot of listeners today. Before
we explain who the two leaders are, I think we
should talk through the fact that these are not names
that are necessarily going to appear on the ballots of
most people's voting cards this weekend. There's an important difference
between who the potential future leader is versus who we
(01:22):
vote for on ballot day.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So I do think this is a good place to
start because I think sometimes we look at the US
and we think that we do things very similarly, but
when it comes to voting, it's very, very different. So
when we go to vote here in Australia, as you
just said, unless you live in two electorates Graindler in
Sydney or Dixon in Queensland, you're not actually directly voting
(01:47):
for Anthony Alberenezi or Peter Dudden. Instead, you're voting for
who you want to send to Canberra to represent your
local electorate. So, for example, if you're in the seat
of one and say in Victoria, yeah, you're going to
vote for who you believe should represent one in Parliament.
That's not going to be Anthony Albanesi, and that's not
going to be Peter Dudden. You're gonna have a choice
(02:07):
between a Liberal candidate. So that seat's currently held by
a Liberal candidate Dantean exactly, but he is being challenged
by a bunch of other candidates for example, an independent
candidate in Alex Dyson, a Labor candidate, a Greens candidate.
I won't keep saying the way candidate. You understand what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And if the name Alex Dyson sounds familiar to you,
that's because he is a former Triple j presenter.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He is, so he has decided to make the venture
into independent politics. And so that was just an example
of one of the seats and some of the names
that you might see. And so, as we've spoken about
on this podcast before, the way that government is formed
is that whichever of the major parties reach seventy six
seats of the available one hundred and fifty seats in
(02:50):
the House, that's the party that forms government. And so
the leader of that party then goes on to become
the prime minister.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So while not every ballot will have Anthony Albanesi or
Peter Dutton's name on it, there will be representatives of
the major parties on those ballots.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Okay, gotcha. So now that we understand how the House
of Reps forms government and how a leader becomes prime minister,
let's talk about those two leadership options. We have Anthony Albanesi,
who is, of course the current sitting Prime minister, the
leader of the Labor Party, and Peter Dutton the opposition leader,
the Liberal Party leader. Let's start with Anthony Albanesi. First,
(03:30):
simple questions are but I'm sure a complex answer, who
is albo?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah, look, a small question there.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But as you said, Anthony Albanesi has been our prime
minister since he won the twenty twenty two federal election.
But he is by no means a new faith when
it comes to politics.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
So if we start way back at.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The beginning of the Anthony Albanesi story, he was born
in Sydney in nineteen sixty three, so that makes him
sixty two. As he regularly discusses and as has informed
a lot of his politics, Albanize was raised by his
single mother in public housing. When he was born, he
understood his father to have passed away. He found out
(04:13):
later in life that that was not the case, and
there are lots of kind of podcasts and stories about
meeting his father later in life, but we'll leave that
for a separate discussion. Anthony Albernezi was the first person
in his family to finish school and then the first
to attend university. He ended up completing Bachelor of Economics
at the University of Sydney and he became involved with
(04:35):
the Labor Party very early on. He actually joined the
party while he was still at school. Wow, So he
is like when you talk about lifelong party members, that
is Anthony alban He's a career Labor man, seriously, and
I mean he's also a career politician basically. So he
left university and went on to work in the party.
He worked as a research officer as a party official,
(04:57):
and then he worked as a staffer or an advisor
to Bob Carr, who was a former premier. And that
was all before he decided that it was time to
run for the seat of Grangler, so his own seat
in parliament in nineteen ninety six, so before I was born.
That's how long he's been in parliament. Anthony Alberanezi was
elected as the Federal Member for Grainsler and at the time,
(05:19):
which is interesting, he was elected as the youngest member
of Parliament.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I think a lot of people don't realize how long
he's been there.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Thirty years.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I mean both of them have been there for ages.
So I was looking back at his first speech. We
used to call them maiden speeches, but that term's kind
of been thrown out a bit. Now we'll just refer
to it as his first speech. And I think that
first speeches are a really helpful way of understanding why
someone goes into politics in the first place. Yeah, what's
(05:50):
really driving them, what they want to achieve.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
They often act as a bit of an opportunity for
that person to tell the country what they stand for,
what motivated them to want to be in public service.
So there's a lot you can learn from someone from.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
That address, definitely, And I mean it's crazy to think
that it was decades ago now, but I'll read a
little bit of it. Anthony Albanize said on the floor
of the Parliament, I will be satisfied if I can
be remembered as someone who will stand up for the
interests of my electorate, for working class people, for the
labor movement, and for our progressive advancement as a nation
(06:25):
into the next century.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Of course, he was speaking in the last.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Century, very nineties child.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, And so during his very long career in parliament,
Albanizi has held a number of portfolios and shadow portfolios,
so he became a senior minister during the running Gillard years.
He served as the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and
then later as Deputy Prime Minister under Kevin Rudd. But
then Labor lost power and the Coalition won successive elections
(06:55):
and so Labor wasn't in power for nearly a decade,
and so during that time Anthony alban Easy was understood
to kind of been working up the ranks. And when
Labor lost the twenty nineteen election, which was a big
shock if people remember.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
When Bill Shorten lost to Scott Morrison.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Exactly and no one was expecting it.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
And so when Labor lost, Bill Shorten stepped down and
that is when Anthony Alberizi became the leader of the
Labor Party, and we all know he went on to
lead the party to victory at the twenty twenty two election,
and at that election kind of similar to a first
speech in Parliament, it's interesting to look back at what
the priorities he set out in his first speech or
(07:35):
his victory speech after becoming Prime minister was, because it's
like kind of different to what we're talking about this election.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It's incredibly different. And I think the big standout moment
from that speech that many of us will remember is
the referendum exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So Anthony Alberzi got up and basically the first sentence,
almost out of his mouth, was that he was going
to implement the ull statement from the heart in full.
Since that time, we've gone to a referendum that failed,
but that was certainly one of the big policy promises
from the Albaneze government at that time. His basic premise
(08:13):
for or his basic promise I guess to the electorate
was no one held back and no one left behind.
So that set out a bit of what Anthony Abereneze
wanted to.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Do with his three years in power.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
He wanted to take significant action on climate change and
he wanted to in his own words, build an economy
that works for people and not the other way around.
Obviously needs to be said that a lot has changed
in those three years, a lot of external factors, also
a lot of internal domestic matters that have shifted since.
(08:44):
And so this time around we are looking, as we've
spoken on podcasts this week, at quite different policy platforms
than the last time around.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, and of course the mood is very different to
twenty twenty two when we were coming out of COVID
out of the pandemic. In that recovery phase, there was
that sort of sense of uncertainty or disbelief of is
it really over? Are we really moving on now? And
then of course, you know, the cost of living crisis
in the meantime has well and truly set in and
that's dominated the campaigning on both sides absolutely this election.
(09:16):
It is really interesting though to hear those focuses of
Albanese's career from you know, nineteen ninety six right through
to the last election. He did beat Scott Morrison in
twenty twenty two, and after Morrison lost, Peter Dutton became
the Liberal Party's leader. So he has been leading the
opposition since twenty twenty two. What do we need to
(09:39):
know about Dutton?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So, Peter Dudden was born in nineteen seventy in Brisbane,
and similar to Albanesi, Peter Dunnan became politically involved at
a really early age. So he joined the Young Liberals
at the sprightly age of eighteen. It was only a
year later, at the age of nineteen, that Peter dudd
first ran for parliament.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, I was not even thinking about parliament when I
was nineteen.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
We were very different nineteen year olds.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But clearly both of the choices for leader have long
had these political aspirations. It wasn't something that came to
them later in life, but rather certainly fostered early on.
So it dudn't ran for parliament at the age of nineteen.
He contested a state seat. So he contested a seat
in the nineteen eighty nine Queensland state election, but that
was a safe labor seat and he ended up losing.
(10:30):
And so when he was unsuccessful at that election, he
kind of pivoted a bit. He went on to study
a Bachelor of Business, but then he went part time
to study when he joined the police force. And I'd
say as much as Anthony Albernesi's narrative revolves around his
childhood and growing up with a single mother in public housing.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Working class boy from Marrickville.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Exactly, that narrative has been very strong, and the narrative
of Peter Dudden and his experiences as a policeman, I'd
say are equally as strong.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And a number of his policies.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I think if listeners don't know a lot about Peter Dutton,
what they do know is that he was a cop once.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So he served as a Queensland Police officer for just
under a decade, so for nine years. During that time
he worked in a drug squad in Brisbane and then
he worked later with this sex offenders squad. And I
think it's probably that latter experience that has come to
the fore a lot. He often talks about the unspeakable
things that he saw during his time in the police
(11:32):
force and how that drives him to want to protect
specifically women and girls. Peter Dudden ended up leaving the
police force in nineteen ninety nine. He was at that
point a detective senior constable, but he departed the police force.
He then went on to join his father's business that
was around like kind of converting property into child's care facilities.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So he worked in that for a bit.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But then in two thousand and one his political aspirations
came swinging back and to Dudden contested the seat of
Dixon in Queensland and he won, starting his parliamentary career
at the turn of the century.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Interesting that both Dutton and Albanzi had dabbled in state
politics or started around state politics for advising, advising, and
then their first big political gigs were on the federal stage.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, it is really interesting and I think goes to
a kind of class of people who have spent a
long time in and around politics. I think there are
kind of two categories of politicians, those that had very
different careers and those that have kind of always been
aligned with party politics. And so I just want to
go back to Dudden really quickly, because, like we spoke
(12:43):
about Anthony Albanesi's first speech to Parliament, Dudden's was equally
telling about his priorities and what was really driving him
at the time, and he highlighted how his work as
a policeman.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Had shaped his worldview.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
He said, and I quote, I often say to people
that as a police officer, I've seen the best and
the worst that society has to offer. I've seen the
wonderful kind nature of people willing to offer any assistance
to those in their worst hour. And I've seen the
sickening behavior displayed by people who frankly barely justify their
existence in our sometimes over tolerance society. In that same speech,
(13:19):
he went on to say to me, the Liberal Party
was a party founded in many ways on the principles
of individualism, and reward for achievement. It goes without saying,
of course, that these are principles from which I have
benefited and always defended with great conviction. And I think
that that was a really interesting quote to pull out
because there's so much talk in the kind of political
(13:39):
sphere about what type of liberal Dudden is and whether
Anthony Abeneze is the right type of labor man. But
these sorts of quotes really go to the heart of
how they interpret, yeah, their party's values. And so for
Peter Dudden, we're talking here about small government, we're talking
about the free market, and that is clearly what he
believes to be the way the country should be run.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I was going to say the retoric of both of
their first speeches in parliament. You know, even though we're
talking about the late nineties and two thousand and one,
these quotes could be them today. Really, so as much
as the world around them has changed and they have changed,
their kind of moral compass or their political focus hasn't
(14:22):
really shifted that far away. None of these quotes are
that surprising.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
No, no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And I'll just really quickly jump through the rest of
Dudden's parliamentary careers, so he held key government positions throughout
the kind of last decade or so. He was Home
Affairs Minister. I think that's probably where people first became
familiar at least kind of on a national stage with
Peter Dudden.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That was during a heightened period of illegal immigration, the
stop the Boats era.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, exactly, and so he became the face really of
border security. And then later with Scott Morrison, Dudden alongside
being Home Affairs Minister, it was at one point also
the Minister for Health, the Minister for Sport and the
Minister for Defense.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So he's really tried his hand a lot of different
portfolios there.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Prior to winning the leadership in twenty twenty two, Dudden
had contested the leadership of the Liberal Party before, but
he hadn't been successful. So people might remember during the
Turnbull years there was a time where there was a
bit of unrest in the party.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
We'll put it that way, delicately, put Zarah.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Thank you, and Peter Dunnen put his name for it
or put his hand up to run during a leadership spill.
He wasn't successful at that time. Scott Morrison went on
to become Prime Minister, but then when Scott Morrison lost
the election, Peter Duddaen was elected as leader unopposed, and
so that brings us to today. He's hoping to win
(15:51):
the election and to become the next Prime Minister of Australia.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Okay, So we've got these two mainstays of the alien
political landscape with quite different stories, but there's also a
lot in common there. They've both spent time as leader
of the opposition, they've both been in federal Parliament for decades,
and they're both vying for the same job. But before
(16:17):
we go on Zara, regardless of who wins, it will
be a big deal. Whatever the result is on Saturday,
it's going to be a significant one. Yeah, can you
just explain why?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
So, if Peter Dudden pulls off a victory this weekend
and becomes Prime Minister, he will become the first opposition
leader to unseat a first term government since nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's nearly one hundred years, so many years.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So let me just unpack that.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So, Anthony Albanezi was elected last election, his government, the
Labor Government, has served one term so far. If Dudden
is able to win on Saturday, that will mean that
labor doesn't get a second term, and that it's the
first time that that's happened since nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
This is kind of a trend that we see throughout
polling all around the world that the incumbent government, as
in the government that's serving at the time of the election,
voters anecdotally will favor what they know, the kind of
rhetoric of if people are apathetic, they might think, oh, well,
(17:25):
better the devil.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, It's been such an interesting time in global politics
because for a long time that was believed to be
the case, and incumbents did have this kind of advantage.
But last year we saw a bunch of incumbents, and
specifically kind of moderate or progressive incumbents.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
All lose in a row.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
But then we had the Canadian election just a couple
of days ago, where the incumbent government was once again restored,
and so there is a lot of chatter out there
about whether or not the US election has actually flipped that. Yeah,
and that perhaps we are now going to go back to,
as you said, that incumbency advantage. I've just said the
word incumbency like I like it's in one sentence.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
But to the heart of what you're saying is that
I guess trends have changed, but more than ever this
year we find ourselves in more uncharted territory basically on climates.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Of changing, and anyone that knows a trend is making
it up, but just on the idea of the kind
of historic moment that we're in.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's not just going to be historic.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
If Peter Dudden is successful, If Anthony Albernizi is successful,
he will become the first prime minister to win two
elections in a row since John Howard in two thousand
and four.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
These two facts, these two starts, are bonkers because we're
saying that a first term government hasn't lost its crack
at a second term in nearly one hundred years.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
But a leader of a party hasn't led as prime
minister for two terms since two thousand and four.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And that is, of course, because we have had so
many changes in leadership since that all happened. It has
become a lot harder to unseat a leader. Those leadership
spills you might have noticed, haven't happened for a little bit.
That's because both parties have said, like enough, we must
not have this again.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So it is harder.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But that means that, yeah, for the last twenty odd years,
that's that's been the case. And so if Anthony Albanezi wins,
he's going to be the first one to do it,
a kind of double whammy since John Howard.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Whatever happens, it's history in the making, we're.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Going to be talking about it no matter what.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It's exciting. I'm sure there's you know, a lot of
fatigue setting in for people out there every day through
there's only a couple of exactly every corner you turn,
every page that you scrolled past, every TV as you see,
it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Sce you receive in an unsolicited sense.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And wonder where on earth did they get kay number.
But it's exciting to have these little tea bits to
kind of look forward to and remembering the kind of
historical moments that come with any kind of democratic election.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Exactly couldn't have put a better I'm Zara, thank you
so much for taking us through that.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It was really really helpful and interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Thank you and thank you for joining us for another
episode of The Daily Os. We've got one more day
of the working week before the election. Make sure you
are sending any friend who's saying I'm not political these
podcasts because everyone needs to vote and therefore they need
to be informed. We'll be back later today with the headlines,
but until then, have a great day. My name is
(20:38):
Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcutin woman
from Gadighl country. The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast
is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and
pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Dahlias.
Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,
the first of May.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm Zara Sidler, I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, we are officially at the point to end of
the election campaign.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Wowie.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I don't know how many times I'm going to say
that this week, but hey we're here. In a matter
of days, we're going to know which party is formed
government and who the next Leader of Australia will be
and so on today's episode, I thought it would be
helpful to give a bit of a lowdown on who
the two people lying for the top.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Job actually are.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
You've heard their names many times before, Anthony Albertezi and
Peter Dudden, from their time before Parliament to what they've
pushed for inside of Canberra. We're going to take you
through everything you need to know before the weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
All right, I think this is going to be a
really helpful one for a lot of listeners today. Before
we explain who the two leaders are, I think we
should talk through the fact that these are not names
that are necessarily going to appear on the ballots of
most people's voting cards this weekend. There's an important difference
between who the potential future leader is versus who we
(01:22):
vote for on ballot day.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So I do think this is a good place to
start because I think sometimes we look at the US
and we think that we do things very similarly, but
when it comes to voting, it's very, very different. So
when we go to vote here in Australia, as you
just said, unless you live in two electorates Graindler in
Sydney or Dixon in Queensland, you're not actually directly voting
(01:47):
for Anthony Alberenezi or Peter Dudden. Instead, you're voting for
who you want to send to Canberra to represent your
local electorate. So, for example, if you're in the seat
of one and say in Victoria, yeah, you're going to
vote for who you believe should represent one in Parliament.
That's not going to be Anthony Albanesi, and that's not
going to be Peter Dudden. You're gonna have a choice
(02:07):
between a Liberal candidate. So that seat's currently held by
a Liberal candidate Dantean exactly, but he is being challenged
by a bunch of other candidates for example, an independent
candidate in Alex Dyson, a Labor candidate, a Greens candidate.
I won't keep saying the way candidate. You understand what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And if the name Alex Dyson sounds familiar to you,
that's because he is a former Triple j presenter.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He is, so he has decided to make the venture
into independent politics. And so that was just an example
of one of the seats and some of the names
that you might see. And so, as we've spoken about
on this podcast before, the way that government is formed
is that whichever of the major parties reach seventy six
seats of the available one hundred and fifty seats in
(02:50):
the House, that's the party that forms government. And so
the leader of that party then goes on to become
the prime minister.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So while not every ballot will have Anthony Albanesi or
Peter Dutton's name on it, there will be representatives of
the major parties on those ballots.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Okay, gotcha. So now that we understand how the House
of Reps forms government and how a leader becomes prime minister,
let's talk about those two leadership options. We have Anthony Albanesi,
who is, of course the current sitting Prime minister, the
leader of the Labor Party, and Peter Dutton the opposition leader,
the Liberal Party leader. Let's start with Anthony Albanesi. First,
(03:30):
simple questions are but I'm sure a complex answer, who
is albo?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah, look, a small question there.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But as you said, Anthony Albanesi has been our prime
minister since he won the twenty twenty two federal election.
But he is by no means a new faith when
it comes to politics.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
So if we start way back at.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The beginning of the Anthony Albanesi story, he was born
in Sydney in nineteen sixty three, so that makes him
sixty two. As he regularly discusses and as has informed
a lot of his politics, Albanize was raised by his
single mother in public housing. When he was born, he
understood his father to have passed away. He found out
(04:13):
later in life that that was not the case, and
there are lots of kind of podcasts and stories about
meeting his father later in life, but we'll leave that
for a separate discussion. Anthony Albernezi was the first person
in his family to finish school and then the first
to attend university. He ended up completing Bachelor of Economics
at the University of Sydney and he became involved with
(04:35):
the Labor Party very early on. He actually joined the
party while he was still at school. Wow, So he
is like when you talk about lifelong party members, that
is Anthony alban He's a career Labor man, seriously, and
I mean he's also a career politician basically. So he
left university and went on to work in the party.
He worked as a research officer as a party official,
(04:57):
and then he worked as a staffer or an advisor
to Bob Carr, who was a former premier. And that
was all before he decided that it was time to
run for the seat of Grangler, so his own seat
in parliament in nineteen ninety six, so before I was born.
That's how long he's been in parliament. Anthony Alberanezi was
elected as the Federal Member for Grainsler and at the time,
(05:19):
which is interesting, he was elected as the youngest member
of Parliament.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I think a lot of people don't realize how long
he's been there.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Thirty years.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I mean both of them have been there for ages.
So I was looking back at his first speech. We
used to call them maiden speeches, but that term's kind
of been thrown out a bit. Now we'll just refer
to it as his first speech. And I think that
first speeches are a really helpful way of understanding why
someone goes into politics in the first place. Yeah, what's
(05:50):
really driving them, what they want to achieve.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
They often act as a bit of an opportunity for
that person to tell the country what they stand for,
what motivated them to want to be in public service.
So there's a lot you can learn from someone from.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
That address, definitely, And I mean it's crazy to think
that it was decades ago now, but I'll read a
little bit of it. Anthony Albanize said on the floor
of the Parliament, I will be satisfied if I can
be remembered as someone who will stand up for the
interests of my electorate, for working class people, for the
labor movement, and for our progressive advancement as a nation
(06:25):
into the next century.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Of course, he was speaking in the last.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Century, very nineties child.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, And so during his very long career in parliament,
Albanizi has held a number of portfolios and shadow portfolios,
so he became a senior minister during the running Gillard years.
He served as the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and
then later as Deputy Prime Minister under Kevin Rudd. But
then Labor lost power and the Coalition won successive elections
(06:55):
and so Labor wasn't in power for nearly a decade,
and so during that time Anthony alban Easy was understood
to kind of been working up the ranks. And when
Labor lost the twenty nineteen election, which was a big
shock if people remember.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
When Bill Shorten lost to Scott Morrison.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Exactly and no one was expecting it.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
And so when Labor lost, Bill Shorten stepped down and
that is when Anthony Alberizi became the leader of the
Labor Party, and we all know he went on to
lead the party to victory at the twenty twenty two election,
and at that election kind of similar to a first
speech in Parliament, it's interesting to look back at what
the priorities he set out in his first speech or
(07:35):
his victory speech after becoming Prime minister was, because it's
like kind of different to what we're talking about this election.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It's incredibly different. And I think the big standout moment
from that speech that many of us will remember is
the referendum exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So Anthony Alberzi got up and basically the first sentence,
almost out of his mouth, was that he was going
to implement the ull statement from the heart in full.
Since that time, we've gone to a referendum that failed,
but that was certainly one of the big policy promises
from the Albaneze government at that time. His basic premise
(08:13):
for or his basic promise I guess to the electorate
was no one held back and no one left behind.
So that set out a bit of what Anthony Abereneze
wanted to.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Do with his three years in power.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
He wanted to take significant action on climate change and
he wanted to in his own words, build an economy
that works for people and not the other way around.
Obviously needs to be said that a lot has changed
in those three years, a lot of external factors, also
a lot of internal domestic matters that have shifted since.
(08:44):
And so this time around we are looking, as we've
spoken on podcasts this week, at quite different policy platforms
than the last time around.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, and of course the mood is very different to
twenty twenty two when we were coming out of COVID
out of the pandemic. In that recovery phase, there was
that sort of sense of uncertainty or disbelief of is
it really over? Are we really moving on now? And
then of course, you know, the cost of living crisis
in the meantime has well and truly set in and
that's dominated the campaigning on both sides absolutely this election.
(09:16):
It is really interesting though to hear those focuses of
Albanese's career from you know, nineteen ninety six right through
to the last election. He did beat Scott Morrison in
twenty twenty two, and after Morrison lost, Peter Dutton became
the Liberal Party's leader. So he has been leading the
opposition since twenty twenty two. What do we need to
(09:39):
know about Dutton?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So, Peter Dudden was born in nineteen seventy in Brisbane,
and similar to Albanesi, Peter Dunnan became politically involved at
a really early age. So he joined the Young Liberals
at the sprightly age of eighteen. It was only a
year later, at the age of nineteen, that Peter dudd
first ran for parliament.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, I was not even thinking about parliament when I
was nineteen.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
We were very different nineteen year olds.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But clearly both of the choices for leader have long
had these political aspirations. It wasn't something that came to
them later in life, but rather certainly fostered early on.
So it dudn't ran for parliament at the age of nineteen.
He contested a state seat. So he contested a seat
in the nineteen eighty nine Queensland state election, but that
was a safe labor seat and he ended up losing.
(10:30):
And so when he was unsuccessful at that election, he
kind of pivoted a bit. He went on to study
a Bachelor of Business, but then he went part time
to study when he joined the police force. And I'd
say as much as Anthony Albernesi's narrative revolves around his
childhood and growing up with a single mother in public housing.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Working class boy from Marrickville.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Exactly, that narrative has been very strong, and the narrative
of Peter Dudden and his experiences as a policeman, I'd
say are equally as strong.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And a number of his policies.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I think if listeners don't know a lot about Peter Dutton,
what they do know is that he was a cop once.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So he served as a Queensland Police officer for just
under a decade, so for nine years. During that time
he worked in a drug squad in Brisbane and then
he worked later with this sex offenders squad. And I
think it's probably that latter experience that has come to
the fore a lot. He often talks about the unspeakable
things that he saw during his time in the police
(11:32):
force and how that drives him to want to protect
specifically women and girls. Peter Dudden ended up leaving the
police force in nineteen ninety nine. He was at that
point a detective senior constable, but he departed the police force.
He then went on to join his father's business that
was around like kind of converting property into child's care facilities.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So he worked in that for a bit.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But then in two thousand and one his political aspirations
came swinging back and to Dudden contested the seat of
Dixon in Queensland and he won, starting his parliamentary career
at the turn of the century.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Interesting that both Dutton and Albanzi had dabbled in state
politics or started around state politics for advising, advising, and
then their first big political gigs were on the federal stage.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, it is really interesting and I think goes to
a kind of class of people who have spent a
long time in and around politics. I think there are
kind of two categories of politicians, those that had very
different careers and those that have kind of always been
aligned with party politics. And so I just want to
go back to Dudden really quickly, because, like we spoke
(12:43):
about Anthony Albanesi's first speech to Parliament, Dudden's was equally
telling about his priorities and what was really driving him
at the time, and he highlighted how his work as
a policeman.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Had shaped his worldview.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
He said, and I quote, I often say to people
that as a police officer, I've seen the best and
the worst that society has to offer. I've seen the
wonderful kind nature of people willing to offer any assistance
to those in their worst hour. And I've seen the
sickening behavior displayed by people who frankly barely justify their
existence in our sometimes over tolerance society. In that same speech,
(13:19):
he went on to say to me, the Liberal Party
was a party founded in many ways on the principles
of individualism, and reward for achievement. It goes without saying,
of course, that these are principles from which I have
benefited and always defended with great conviction. And I think
that that was a really interesting quote to pull out
because there's so much talk in the kind of political
(13:39):
sphere about what type of liberal Dudden is and whether
Anthony Abeneze is the right type of labor man. But
these sorts of quotes really go to the heart of
how they interpret, yeah, their party's values. And so for
Peter Dudden, we're talking here about small government, we're talking
about the free market, and that is clearly what he
believes to be the way the country should be run.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I was going to say the retoric of both of
their first speeches in parliament. You know, even though we're
talking about the late nineties and two thousand and one,
these quotes could be them today. Really, so as much
as the world around them has changed and they have changed,
their kind of moral compass or their political focus hasn't
(14:22):
really shifted that far away. None of these quotes are
that surprising.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
No, no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And I'll just really quickly jump through the rest of
Dudden's parliamentary careers, so he held key government positions throughout
the kind of last decade or so. He was Home
Affairs Minister. I think that's probably where people first became
familiar at least kind of on a national stage with
Peter Dudden.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That was during a heightened period of illegal immigration, the
stop the Boats era.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, exactly, and so he became the face really of
border security. And then later with Scott Morrison, Dudden alongside
being Home Affairs Minister, it was at one point also
the Minister for Health, the Minister for Sport and the
Minister for Defense.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So he's really tried his hand a lot of different
portfolios there.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Prior to winning the leadership in twenty twenty two, Dudden
had contested the leadership of the Liberal Party before, but
he hadn't been successful. So people might remember during the
Turnbull years there was a time where there was a
bit of unrest in the party.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
We'll put it that way, delicately, put Zarah.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Thank you, and Peter Dunnen put his name for it
or put his hand up to run during a leadership spill.
He wasn't successful at that time. Scott Morrison went on
to become Prime Minister, but then when Scott Morrison lost
the election, Peter Duddaen was elected as leader unopposed, and
so that brings us to today. He's hoping to win
(15:51):
the election and to become the next Prime Minister of Australia.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Okay, So we've got these two mainstays of the alien
political landscape with quite different stories, but there's also a
lot in common there. They've both spent time as leader
of the opposition, they've both been in federal Parliament for decades,
and they're both vying for the same job. But before
(16:17):
we go on Zara, regardless of who wins, it will
be a big deal. Whatever the result is on Saturday,
it's going to be a significant one. Yeah, can you
just explain why?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
So, if Peter Dudden pulls off a victory this weekend
and becomes Prime Minister, he will become the first opposition
leader to unseat a first term government since nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's nearly one hundred years, so many years.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So let me just unpack that.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So, Anthony Albanezi was elected last election, his government, the
Labor Government, has served one term so far. If Dudden
is able to win on Saturday, that will mean that
labor doesn't get a second term, and that it's the
first time that that's happened since nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
This is kind of a trend that we see throughout
polling all around the world that the incumbent government, as
in the government that's serving at the time of the election,
voters anecdotally will favor what they know, the kind of
rhetoric of if people are apathetic, they might think, oh, well,
(17:25):
better the devil.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, It's been such an interesting time in global politics
because for a long time that was believed to be
the case, and incumbents did have this kind of advantage.
But last year we saw a bunch of incumbents, and
specifically kind of moderate or progressive incumbents.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
All lose in a row.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
But then we had the Canadian election just a couple
of days ago, where the incumbent government was once again restored,
and so there is a lot of chatter out there
about whether or not the US election has actually flipped that. Yeah,
and that perhaps we are now going to go back to,
as you said, that incumbency advantage. I've just said the
word incumbency like I like it's in one sentence.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
But to the heart of what you're saying is that
I guess trends have changed, but more than ever this
year we find ourselves in more uncharted territory basically on climates.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Of changing, and anyone that knows a trend is making
it up, but just on the idea of the kind
of historic moment that we're in.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's not just going to be historic.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
If Peter Dudden is successful, If Anthony Albernizi is successful,
he will become the first prime minister to win two
elections in a row since John Howard in two thousand
and four.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
These two facts, these two starts, are bonkers because we're
saying that a first term government hasn't lost its crack
at a second term in nearly one hundred years.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
But a leader of a party hasn't led as prime
minister for two terms since two thousand and four.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And that is, of course, because we have had so
many changes in leadership since that all happened. It has
become a lot harder to unseat a leader. Those leadership
spills you might have noticed, haven't happened for a little bit.
That's because both parties have said, like enough, we must
not have this again.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So it is harder.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But that means that, yeah, for the last twenty odd years,
that's that's been the case. And so if Anthony Albanezi wins,
he's going to be the first one to do it,
a kind of double whammy since John Howard.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Whatever happens, it's history in the making, we're.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Going to be talking about it no matter what.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It's exciting. I'm sure there's you know, a lot of
fatigue setting in for people out there every day through
there's only a couple of exactly every corner you turn,
every page that you scrolled past, every TV as you see,
it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Sce you receive in an unsolicited sense.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And wonder where on earth did they get kay number.
But it's exciting to have these little tea bits to
kind of look forward to and remembering the kind of
historical moments that come with any kind of democratic election.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Exactly couldn't have put a better I'm Zara, thank you
so much for taking us through that.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It was really really helpful and interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Thank you and thank you for joining us for another
episode of The Daily Os. We've got one more day
of the working week before the election. Make sure you
are sending any friend who's saying I'm not political these
podcasts because everyone needs to vote and therefore they need
to be informed. We'll be back later today with the headlines,
but until then, have a great day. My name is
(20:38):
Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcutin woman
from Gadighl country. The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast
is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and
pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
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