Leaks, lies and sabotage: The Coalition’s second-week election meltdown

We analyse the turbulent second week of the 2025 federal election campaign, where the Liberal–National Coalition’s strategy descended into chaos. The week’s headline issue – the Port of Darwin lease to a Chinese company – was rebranded by Peter Dutton as a national security crisis, only to be politically outplayed by Anthony Albanese, exposing the Coalition’s hypocrisy in approving the deal back in 2015. Behind the scenes, internal sabotage from the NSW Liberal division is threatening Dutton’s campaign, allegedly paving the way for Angus Taylor as a post-election leader. Meanwhile, the Coalition’s hasty withdrawal of its work-from-home policy reveals its lack of preparation and voter resonance, while the credibility of Kooyong candidate Amelia Hamer was shattered by revelations she owns multi-million-dollar properties despite claiming to be a struggling renter. Internationally, both major parties remain silent on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza – only the Greens and a few independents have called out the massacre of Palestinian aid workers – while Penny Wong and Albanese offer evasive platitudes. On the climate front, Albanese faced criticism for Labor’s approval of new coal and gas expansions, while Dutton made headlines for kicking a football into the head of an Iraqi–Australian cameraman – a moment symbolic of his broader political insensitivity. As polls continue to favour Labor, global instability, Trump-style economic chaos, and Coalition disunity threaten to derail the opposition’s chances.

Support New Politics, just $5 per month!: 

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/newpolitics
• Substack: https://newpolitics.substack.com

Song listing:

1. ‘Good Stuff’, The B-52s.
2. ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, Serge Gainsbourg (French Accent Remix)
3. ‘Familiar’, Agnes Obel.
4. ‘Wild’, Spoon.
5. ‘Bumper’, The Cannanes.
6. ‘Humiliation’, The National.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of New Politics was released on the twelfth
of April twenty twenty five and produced on the lands
of the Wongle and Gadigal people.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And hello to our audience and a big pullo to you,
David Howe. Has the week been on the campaign trial
for you?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Ah?

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Look, It's the key part of being a political commentator
elections because this is where everything stripped there. This is
where governments lose elections, oppositions win them all. Governments retain
government and oppositions get poisted off into another three years
of difficulty. We see the strengths of the candidates, if

(00:48):
they have any. We see the flaws of the candidates,
if they have any. And sometimes the strengths are actually
flows and the floors are actually strengths. It's been an
interesting campaign, despite the claims of the mainstream media otherwise,
I can't help but feel that some of them are
disappointed that the polls aren't going their way.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
And we've got all the big issues from the second
week of the federal election campaign coming up. China features
once again with the lease of the Darmin Port up
for debate. There's the battle between the Queensland and New
South Wales divisions of the Liberal Party. That's actually a
battle that's been going on behind the scenes for some time.
There's the big backflip on the work from home policy

(01:28):
from Peter Dutton. There's international issues, the market reaction to
the US tariffs, the lack of reaction on the massacres
continuing to happen in Palestine. There's the leader's debate, a
couple of strange incidents during the week as well, and
all the latest opinion polls. And David, I think I've
just taken up the entire episode just explaining what's on.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
But thanks for listening everyone.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
We'll see you next week.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
There is that old saying that in Australia there's too
many journalists and not enough news. But I think in
our case there's too many issues and not enough time.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
There are worse problems to have, of course, and the
lack of interest found in the mainstream media won't be
found here.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
And just a reminder that New Politics is produced by
independent media. You can listen in, share, subscribe and support
New Politics of Patreon and substack. It's just five dollars
per month, or you can donate directly at our website
at Newpolitics dot com dot Au and of course all
of this is a good way to support independent journalism.

(02:26):
Here it's the end of the second week of the
federal election campaign and this is generally the period where

(02:47):
the campaign starts to settle down and meander just a
little bit. The first week is the big bang. The
second week is where everyone starts to get settled a
little bit, and then the preparation starts for the final
few weeks. And just like it was in the first week,
China featured prominently in the second this time it was
about the lease of the Port of Darwin to the

(03:08):
Chinese company land Bridge Group, and that was leased by
the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory in twenty
fifteen and approved by the Federal Liberal Party for five
hundred and six million dollars and that was an incredibly
bad deal.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Peter Dunton was.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Going to make an announcement on the Saturday about canceling
the lease to land Bridge and this information was leaked
to the Labor Party and Anthony Albanesi made the announcement
the day before. The Liberal Party was going to do
exactly the same thing.

Speaker 5 (03:38):
Australia needs to own the Port of Darwin. Well, we
want it to be in Australian hands. We prefer that
it be through superannuation funds or some other vehicle. That
doesn't mean direct taxpayers, but we're prepared to go down
the road of taxpayer direct involvement as well. That's something

(03:58):
that we have had to consistent and bulon not for
three years, since twenty sixteen. We posed at a time
it was shortsighted for economic reasons, but also for national
security reasons.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
That's obvious what the Liberal Party was trying to do
here whip up some more frenzy and more paranoia about China.
But they failed in the sense that they were gazumped
by the Labor Party on this. But it also fell
apart because ultimately they just could not get around that
contradiction that they were the ones who actually approved the
lease back in twenty fifteen when they were lasting government.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
It was probably the stupidest deal. Andrew Robb really should
have been done for treason. I think he ended up
getting a nice plum job with a Chinese company, which
obviously was a thank you for giving the Chinese government
such a great deal. As someone a friend of mine
who knows this type of stuff at a governmental level

(04:56):
said it's one thing to privatize the electricity or the
and sell them off overseas, because in the worst possible case,
you can always rebuild an alternate system that cuts the
owners out. You can't do.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
That with a port.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
If we're that worried about China and it was really
giving it to them, it wasn't renting at leasing it,
mortgaging it, or buying it or selling it. I guess
the rough equivalent would be America selling Puerto Rico to
the USSR for one hundred thousand dollars a year for
one hundred years, completely stupid. They'd have been a laughing stock,

(05:34):
and the people who sold it, of course, also spent
the next few election campaigns, including this one, trying to
beat up China as a threat.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
The other point is that there haven't actually been any
issues at all with this lease all the management of
the port by the land Bridge Group over the past
ten years. There haven't been any security issues or smuggling
issues or anything like that. And I'm sure that some
drugs have probably got through, but there just hasn't been
a big issue about this. And if there is to
be any dramas about this, it would be the fact

(06:05):
that it was such a bad long term deal for
Australia and the Northern Territory government. And the lease was
made for five hundred and six million dollars or just
five million dollars per year over the ninety nine year period.
So if I was going to cancel it, David, I'd
cancel it on being a bad deal rather than the
issues of national security. But that wasn't the path that

(06:25):
the Liberal Party was going to take up. It was
all going to be based around China bashing and ramping
up all of these national security issues that they started
going on about last week when that Chinese research vessel
was traveling through the Southern Ocean, and I thought that
we would have had enough hysteria about China last week,
but they decided to ramp it up again this week

(06:47):
and the Labor Party was tipped off about this announcement,
so by the time Peter Dutton was due to make
his announcement, all he could really do was agree with
what Albanesey had said the day before. But for me,
the other issue was that they were trying to ramp
up hysteria about leasing out the Port of Darwin and
hoping that everyone would have just forgotten about the fact

(07:09):
that it was the Liberal Party that arranged and approved
this lease in twenty fifteen. And it wasn't only this
port there there's also the fifty percent lease in the
Port of Newcastle and that was approved by the Liberal
Party in twenty fourteen through the New South Wales government.
So I just want everyone to forget that they were
the ones behind this. And I don't have an issue

(07:29):
with a Chinese company leasing these ports, but generally I
would have thought that it would have been better for
the government to own these ports, or local companies to
own something that's related to trade and importation, but for
economic reasons. But for me, it's still that inherent contradiction
that still has not been bridged yet.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
How is it.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Possible that Australia's biggest training partner, China, which also owns
ninety nine year leases in two major ports in Australia
and possibly other ports as well, is also guarded as
Australia's biggest national security threat And it can't be both
of these things. So this is not a national security issue,
has got nothing to do with economic or trade issues.

(08:10):
It might be a bad financial deal for Australia. But
essentially it's a political problem with which both sides of
politics are happy to play along with, especially the Liberal Party.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
We're still very much forty years down the track. In
a cold war mindset, must have an obvious enemy that
is different from us or different to us, preferably an
enemy that we can dog whistle race about and complain
about immigration, even though the inverted Commas enemies close. Inverted

(08:42):
Commas trademark copyright people have been coming here almost as
long as Anglo people and have had a major, major,
early positive effect on the Australian community, and yet are
still treated like the other even though there are these
families here of five, six, seven generations down. The dog

(09:04):
whistle has been successful in the past and maybe successful again,
but not in this case because no matter how they
spin it, it was a bad, bad deal. Morrison was involved,
of course as Treasurer, and I think you were right
to point out that there's been no problems with them

(09:25):
as tenants. If it was your house, they were mowing
your lawn, they were painting, they were maintaining the place. Well,
we haven't had any smuggling, we haven't had any obvious
spying from the port. I'm sure there are some happening,
but it's no different to what happens in Sydney Harbor
or Melbourne Ports or Woolongong. Maybe just a little bit easier.

(09:47):
And of course we have people in China looking around
there and we're part of the Five Eyes, so we're
sharing information both ways with the other four eyes on
what's happening there. So if they decide to go all
high and mighty about intelligence gathering, and this is as
old as intelligence, the second oldest profession, no country is

(10:11):
innocent and no country can really take the moral high ground,
though they do on occasions of course.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
And speaking of intelligence, David, we're always on the lookout
for things behind the scenes, and there wasn't much emphasis
placed on this because I guess not many people know
about it. But the reason why Peter Dutton's announcement on
the Darwin Ports was gazumpt was because the details were
leaked directly to the Labor Party campaign team and behind

(10:37):
the scenes there is a battle between the New South
Wales division of the Liberal Party and the Queensland division
of the Liberal National Party and that's a combined energy
up in Queensland and that's a battle that's been between
the more right wing Queensland division and the more moderate
New South Wales. And that's not to say that the
New South Wales Liberals are a paradise of moderation. It's

(10:59):
got some people who to the right of Genghis Khan
and it's also the home of the religious right, but
generally it is more moderate than Queensland. And the New
South Wales branch would prefer to lose the election, which
means that Dutton doesn't become Prime Minister, and then they
would go on to share in the spoils of defeat.
And this might sound strange to a lot of people,

(11:19):
but there's a lot of people in politics who would
prefer to lose an election if that means that they
can consolidate power, either for themselves or for their faction
within the party. And the Liberal Party isn't alone in
doing this. That's what the Labor Party does when they
have a long stint in opposition. And if you can't
win the election, well the next best thing to do
is to.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Control the party.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
And the scenario in this situation is that New South
Wales provides the leader after an election loss, which is
increasingly likely at this stage, and the leader would end
up being Angus Taylor, who would then reclaim his moderate
credentials and of the party. He'd give up this idiocy
that he's frequently displayed over the past twelve years in

(12:01):
Parliament and then leads the Liberal Party to victory in
the twenty twenty eight federal election. So that's what the
theory is. And this of course could also happen earlier
if the Liberal Party wins this election but Peter Dunton
loses the seat of Dixon, so you know, that's another permutation,
but that would be a lot of hard work to

(12:21):
get that permutation happening. So it's a lot easier to
leak all of the details to the Labor Party and
make sure that the Liberal Party does lose this election.
And if Peter Dunton loses the seat of Dixon, well
that would be an added bonus. But Peter Dutton did
complain about the leaks from within the Liberal Party just
a few weeks ago, so that obviously hasn't stopped and

(12:43):
I'd say there will probably be more of this during
the rest of the campaign.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
It should point out that New South Wales Liberal Party
is a bit of a mess in terms. It's not
like I mean, it's not the basket case that the
Victorian Liberal Party is, where it's completely run by far
right Christian nationalist extremists and there are I think no
Victorian moderates anywhere near power. New South Wales. Mark Speakman,

(13:11):
the leader of the opposition, is a moderate and has
said things that have even been contrary to what the
Bejuclian government and glad As Barra Juclian was considered a moderate,
although of course she was like many moderates in the
Liberal Party at all level, struggled to contain the lunatic minority.

(13:33):
Malcolm Turnbull was anough one for example.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Oh John Howard got rid of all the moderates back
in nineteen well before nineteen ninety six.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
Yeah, yeah, they did that massive purge and from there
Australia has struggled to have a good Liberal party in government.
And by good I don't mean one that I agree with,
but one that understands governing for everybody, not just governing
for the few. Nick Griner is considered a social moderate,
but a hardline economist. Speakman's advantages that the Liberal Party

(14:07):
was hammered out and a lot of the extremists lost
their seats quite rightly too. They weren't terribly good local members,
and the surviving members tend to be moderate, but there
is still a noisy rump of Christian nationalists, of conspiracy theorists,
of people with a tenuous grasp on reality in the party.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
I think that's also one of the hidden stories within
this election campaign. It is being reported, but there is
a few Liberal Party candidates who have been disendorsed because
they've just been so outrageously right wing.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
When your two right wing for the modern Liberal Party.
There was that guy who thought that women shouldn't serve
in the military, and he didn't quite say because they
were better off at home, but he suggested that they
didn't have the emotional fortitude or the toughness that's required.
Clearly he's never met a woman.

Speaker 6 (15:00):
Well.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
It also goes to show that a lot of men
in politics are not emotionally equipped to.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
Politics, absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
And he came out and said there's two factions going
after Peter Dutton, the right and the left. And I'll
be fair, I don't think he's lying about that. I'm
not quite sure how accurate it is, but I think
the perception that he has is that that's what's going on,
and perceptions everything. Perception is much more valuable than fact

(15:27):
in politics, and certainly they're probably not going to use
it during an election campaign. But if Peter Dutton survives
the election in that he doesn't step down or lose
his seat on election night, I think we will start
to see the adjective embattled in front of his name.
And I'm quite surprised that it hasn't happened yet, except
it's an election campaign and the press does try to

(15:50):
not obviously tip things.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Conveniently.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
You're in the city of churches, Will you be asking
for forgiveness from female voters?

Speaker 7 (16:00):
I think I am today. Look, I think we've made
a mistake in relation to this policy serup, and I
think it's important that we say that and recognize it.
And our intention always was to make sure that where
taxpayers are working hard and their money is being spent
to pay wages, it's been spent efficiently, and that of
course will always be the case. We want to spend
taxpayers money efficiently. But I think Labe has been able

(16:21):
to get away with twisting and something that wasn't.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Is more than that this back flee. I mean, this
was one of your signature policies.

Speaker 7 (16:29):
We're listening to what people have to say. We've made
a mistake in relation to the policy. We apologize for
that and we've dealt with it.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
We don't usually see a policy dump during an election campaign,
but the Liberal Party decided to scrap its policy to
make public service workers work from the office full time
and in their work from home arrangements. And this policy
was a big mess in the first place. First of all,
it was going to be all public service, and then
it was just going to be public service in Canberra.

(16:59):
Then it was going to be some but not all,
frontline workers only, and then it was discovered that none
of this could happen until twenty twenty seven because there
is a public Service agreement in place at the moment
and that doesn't expire for another two years. So it
was a thought bubble of an idea in the first place.
It wasn't properly thought out, and the fact that they

(17:20):
ran with his policy in the lead up to an
election campaign leads to doubts about other policy issues that
haven't been thought through as well. And it's obvious that
they were bleeding a lot of support over this policy
pretty much from the time that they announced it about
a month ago, I think it was. And initially they
were using this as a tactic to appeal to other

(17:41):
groups within the electorate. They were targeting the blokes in news,
the tradees and all of those people who can't practically
work from home, and also pushing that idea that if
you are working from home or you must be lazy
or not doing your job. But they didn't realize that
most of the tradees and the blokes with you probably
do have partners who are working from home and that

(18:01):
really works out very.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well for them.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
So it shouldn't have been a policy in the first place.
And you left wondering, well, what else are they going
to backflip on, because they've got a wide range of
policy ideas that just don't have very much substance to them.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
There's this denial that COVID ever happened. And that's even
from people who believe that it was a real disease,
which it was, who believed that the lockdowns were necessary,
which they were, and who saw the world change. And
I've said before COVID was really our generation's World War
One in that the old systems died after COVID. We're

(18:37):
just holding onto them, which they did too after World
War One, but they became less and less practical. We
need to think about working from home as a viable opportunity.
And before I go on, I do acknowledge that there
are those of you out there who hate working from home,
who could work from home if they wanted, but would
prefer the sociability of the office. The idea that you

(18:58):
can theoretically walk out your front door almost severance like
almost go to work, have your work place as a
separate area of activity and productivity, et cetera, and come
home of a night time. I do understand that, but
I've spent most of my career working from home, and
I like the fact that I know everything is. I
get a lot more work done because you're not distracted

(19:21):
by other people as much. It saves money in transport
and clothing, and by clothing. I do work clothes at home,
but I don't have to buy as many nice stuff
for work.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
I'm glad to hear that.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yes, I thought i'd better clarify that food. It's cheaper
for everybody to work from home, and I think a
lot of workplaces have come up with a dual model
where a couple of days a week you're in the
office because it is important. And one thing that was
pointed out to me by one of our listeners is
that when you work from home, you can't see how

(19:51):
you can progress through a job. You can't be as
easily mentored, you can't watch that progression of going from
clark through to administrative assistant, through the junior manager or
junior supervisor and on and up. Much harder to achieve
that type of thing because you can't see the job working.
And that was a very decent argument too for not

(20:14):
working from home, having said that the Party of Freedom,
the Party of Liberation, the Party of individualism wanting you
to go into work because I suspect it is because
the developer donors are taking a bath on expensive CBD
properties in the capital cities and major rural centers. And
then of course what a lot of people noticed is

(20:36):
that all of this time dunn't saying he'd live in
Kiribili and essentially work from home. So it was a
policy that was not thought through and the policy that
I think the worst thing you can be in Australian
politics at least from the public perception of things, is
a hypocrite.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
And I think they're dumping this policy during an election campaign.
It's actually created a two far effect. It shows that
there's a lack of conviction in your own policies. And
even if you do dump it, well, your opponents are
going to keep pushing it. They can say, oh, look,
you know it was actually a policy. Now they've dumped it,
but they will introduce it after the election because it
was there as a policy. And Anthony Albanezy referred to

(21:17):
this comment from Tony Abbott on the day just before
the twenty thirteen election.

Speaker 6 (21:25):
I trust everyone actually listened to what Joe Hockey has
said last week and again this week. No cuts to education,
no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change
to the GST, and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
And then of course the coalition went on to cut education,
cut health, cut the ABC and cut SBS. So this
is a policy or a process. It wasn't thought through properly,
and who knows it might have actually been his own
policy team trying to sabotage Peter Dump to say, oh look, Peter,
here's a great new policy. Let's end work from home

(22:04):
arrangements that will mainly affect women.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Going to be a good policy, big winner. And while
you're at it, here's a nuclear power policy that we've
developed just for you, and that's going to be a
big winner too. So you never know what goes on
behind the scenes. And I don't know if it would
have been just better to leave this policy there and
just not talk about it anymore or reframe it in
a different way, because it just feeds into other policy ideas.

(22:29):
You know what else have they not thought through properly?
Nuclear health, education, all of these other areas, And for me,
it also shows that they just have not done the
hard work over the past three years, during this time
that they've been in opposition, and I think they were
just hoping to roll back into government again. You know,
all of this stuff that should have been road tested

(22:49):
years ago, but they just couldn't be bothered doing that.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Since probably Howard, well after Howard, there's been this since that,
and of course we can probably go back before then too,
there's been this sense that they don't need to give
policy labor has to be visionary and broad and confident
and brassy and inspirational. The Liberal Party can bring in
a Scott Morrison and expect that they will win, and

(23:16):
in that case they did. And when the Liberal Party
tend to go into their periods of non government, when
you have inspirational labor leaders, when you have labor leaders
who can unite a town hall or who can look
good on television, or labor needs to earn the election,
whereas the Liberal Party tends not.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
To well, I just feel like that can just turn up.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
Yeah, And unfortunately it's not really like that over you know,
it's not mister Menzies anymore, who looked after things and
was a very nice man and the leader we needed
in the fifties. Trademark copyright. You have to show your
worth as a leader. You have to be inspirational. Now,
I think I've said before I don't think the next

(24:00):
Liberal Prime Minister has been elected to Parliament yet. There's
a death of leadership talent in the party. And I'll
be fair. There might be a backbencher who I'm not
aware of, whose time is next month, and that person
might go on to inspire everybody and they win the
next election. But if the polls are right, they're going
to lose a couple of seats, including possibly the seat

(24:21):
of Dixon. Now, before Labor supporters start cheering, Labor is
not traveling that well either two party preferred. They absolutely are,
but it looks like Labor is going to only gain
one or two seats and most of the Liberal and
National seats that are lost, and the Nationals is a
whole other thing, and I don't think they're going to

(24:42):
lose many, if any, seats will go to Independence, Greens
and other candidates like that, not the Liberal Party. And
this is where the election becomes really interesting. We're watching
the old order breakdown and a new order which the
shape is uncertain. Rise Up.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
This is New Politics with Eddie Jokovic and David lewis
the best podcast on Australian politics and news commentary. You
can support us through Patreon and substack, and also find
us at New politics dot com dot au.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
We've already had the fake trade during the campaign and
it's not quite the fake Renter, but it's almost there.
And there wasn't hish you in the seat of Couyon,
where the Liberal Party candidate Amelia Hamer has been pushing
this idea of being a rencher to the media at
every opportunity.

Speaker 8 (26:09):
I'm just going to be listening to the local community,
advocating for them where I can, and talking about the
real issues down here, which is, you know, cost of
living just down here, just off Glen Ferry Road. We've
got a lot of traders in this area, a lot
of small businesses, and they're telling me when I'm going
in and I'm having a chat, they're telling me that
they're really struggling at the moment, and people in this
community are actually really struggling with the cost of living.

(26:31):
They're struggling to pay the mortgage, they're struggling to pay
their rent. I know my rent's gone up significantly. I'm
a renter, and you know, I'm just having those conversations
with people every day.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
And that was actually a clip from June last year.
And it's got to a point where every media interview
that she's done over the past nine months has pushed
this idea of being a renter. And there's nothing wrong
with renting. I've been doing it for most of my life.
But Amelia Hamer was trying to make yourself more relatable
to millennials, trying to make herself a woman of the
people and just in tune with what it's really like

(27:04):
to struggle, and David, it sounded like so much of
a struggle that I was going to tip in a
few hundred dollars into her campaign just to help out.
But then it was revealed that while it is true
that Amelia Haymer rents an apartment in Hawthorne, she actually
owns two properties, one in London valued at one point
five million dollars and another property in Canberra valued at
one point two five million dollars. And these were bought

(27:28):
many years ago, so it's not like I would just
purchase a couple of weeks ago and she happened to
forget about it, and in her place like Quyong, I
don't think anyone would care if she's a renter or
owns two properties or both of these is the deception
that really matters. She pushed that idea of being a
renter wanting to get into the housing market, but she's
already there. And she also claimed that she wouldn't be

(27:50):
able to have children because her rented apartment was just
too small. But all of this is a complete.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Pile of crap.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Now, she probably wasn't going to win the seat against
her community independent Monique Ryan. She does have some chance,
but not much, and especially after this incident. But why
they need to lie, David? You know, voters will accept
candidates for who they are, if they are genuine. But
now she's made herself a focus off attention for all
the wrong reasons.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
And it's always an.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Issue about being caught out by the electorate and it
always makes them think, well, if you're lying about this,
well what else are you lying about? And it also
gives your opponent so much material to work with.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
I'm not quite sure how you spin it. I was
thinking you could say, look, I'm renting at the moment,
and I have two investment properties which suddenly gone. And
in Kuyong, which is a rather wealthier suburb, there are
pockets of renters that touches the Melbourne University, so there's

(28:48):
student accommodations and there's a little bit of public housing
and things like that in Kujong. I guess we could
say her intentions were good. She wanted to show that
she wasn't another wealthy liberal a property portfolio, living comfortably
in her own house that she's renting, and that she
understands the uncertainty of renting and the cost of renting,
and that the place is small, et cetera. But having

(29:10):
a house in London and having a house in Canberra
doesn't look good. If she'd had a house in Bendigo
or Geelong or Lingatha or warner Ball and was renting
in the city, she might have got away with that
as struggling. But Canbra's not known for its cheap housing
in London is well London unless it's London Ontario.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
But for me, it's not either ranching or owning two
properties and doing both at the same time. That for
me isn't the issue. It's just the lie that preceded
all of this.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yeah, and that's exactly it, trying to push through that
this is what she is, when clearly it's not what
she is. That's finished her. I think Monique Ryan, like
I think all of the so called teal independence, has
been a good local member, concerned with the local community,
helping her constituents, being present, being available. The reason Manique

(30:03):
Ryan one was because Josh Fredenberg, apart from being a
dreadful treasurer, was never in Ku Yong, hardly spent any time,
would only turn up around election time and then disappear
for two and a half years. Monique Ryan has like
the rest of the Teals, and I think too day Lee,
who isn't part of that particular movement, has been a

(30:24):
really good local member in Cabramatta. As much as I
disagree with her approach and her philosophy, she's been there,
she's been present, she's been looking after her constituents. And
Adam band I am told is a very good local member.
Just to take that it's not just the Teal candidates
who are good local members. Many of our independence and
smaller party people take their job very seriously, even when

(30:48):
they have higher responsibilities.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Oh absolutely, But I've noticed that this is part of
a strategy that's being employed by the Liberal Party at
the moment. In those seats that are being held by
the Community Independence. They used to be Liberal Party held
seats and now they're not. It's also a strategy in
those seats that have got a strong chance to be
won by a Community Independent and what the Liberal Party

(31:11):
is doing at the moment is putting in people who
look like they could be Community Independence or TIL candidates,
and they're actually using the color TILL in their marketing material.
And they've done this in Kouyong, they've done this in
the seat of Bradfield, where the community independent Nicolette Buller
is likely to win. And they're using young women who
have been successful outside of politics, and that's good to see.

(31:33):
But they're right on Liberal Party brand. You know, they
lie about their backgrounds. They're trying to look like they're
poor or of the people when they're actually a banker
or a corporate lawyer. You know, they're very illiberal, they're Naki,
they're generally not very nice people. And these are not
people of the community. These are cooker cutter caricatures from
Liberal Party headquarters. Now bankers, people of privileged, corporate lawyers,

(31:57):
small minded small business people. And I'm not suggesting that
the Labor Party's got all of these candidates who are
community champions. Most of them are not. But I think
that the Liberal Party does recognize that this is a
problem for them in these seats, that they have to
be more like the community and the tual independence. But
if they want to win those seats back, well it's

(32:18):
not enough just to look like you're a tuel independent.
You actually have to be a strong member of the community.
In so far, they've been missing the mark on this.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
All of the I'll call them the good independence, not
the astroturfed Clive Palmer stuff, which as I said includes
I mean including the Greens, even though they're not independent,
they're a legitimate party, but in terms of they're not
being a part of either side of government, all of
them said exactly who they were. A lot of the

(32:48):
Tiel candidates either had been members of the Liberal Party
or had voted all their life for the Liberal Party
and just got to the point where they realized that
the party didn't align with their value anymore. And they
all had the sense that the party didn't align with
the people in their area anymore, which is of course
a great reason to run. And when I say their values,

(33:09):
it wasn't every value, I'm sure, and in fact I
know because they've said it. When you talk to them
about industrial relations and the role of the union, for example,
when you talk to them about welfare, they're further to
the right of youriety, but they're honest and open about it.
They've never claimed that they're not. And this is again
where the Liberal Party seems to fall down. They will

(33:30):
claim all this stuff and then it turns out that's
not true, and honesty gets you a long long way
in politics. Dishonesty tends not to. My point is that
you're right. You need to be honest in a profession
not known for its honesty. We're making a fortune with tariffs.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Two billion dollars a day.

Speaker 8 (33:52):
Do you believe it?

Speaker 9 (33:52):
I was told two billion dollars a day.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
You know, I get hit by the press about tariffs.
We're making two billion billion.

Speaker 6 (34:02):
This is in thirty five million, that's pinuts two billion
dollars a day, and then they say, gee, they don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
You know, this is only the enemy can be talking
this way.

Speaker 6 (34:12):
In addition, we have a lot of countries coming to
see us that want to make a deal.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
There's always going to be some international issues that affect
a local election campaign, and the big issue overall has
been the effects of the tariffactions of the United States,
which have affected global markets, including in Australia. It's really
hard to predict what will happen here. The markets did
go down dramatically and then came back up dramatically. UF

(34:38):
tariffs have now been paused for ninety days, and there
is some suspicion of insider trading. And I couldn't possibly
suggest anyone, David, But if I was pushed on it,
I'd probably be looking at Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
But that's just between you and me, David, so please
don't tell anyone about that. But but so far this
has not been very good. And only when these types

(35:01):
of issues occur and there's instability at this point of
a campaign, there just hasn't been enough time for the
full effects to be felt by the electorate. And it's
only been a week since all of this turmoils started.
If the electric can feel that this turmoil on the horizon,
then this is when they're less likely to want to
have a change of government.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
Trump came in like a wrecking ball. To quote noted
philosopher Miley Cyrus, there was that wonderful clip of the
US hearings where the Democratic senator asks a Secretary of Trade,
why are we hammering Australia with a ten percent tariff?
We're in trade surplus with Australia. We're going to lose that.

(35:43):
And he goes on, oh, Australia doesn't buy any of
our beef or pork. Australia buys very little beef or
pork from overseas. We have a lot of it, and
Australia has some of the toughest border biosecurity in the world.
And in the end, the Democratic Senator says, I know
that you are smarter than that answer, which that was

(36:03):
a very nice way of putting things. And really they
can't explain why all these tariffs were put on. China's
at one hundred and I've seen two figures, one hundred
and four percent and one hundred and twenty five percent tariff,
which is going to be a big problem because a
lot of the stuff that America manufacturers, the parts are
made in China. And he hasn't seemed to have thought

(36:24):
through any of this. He doesn't understand how free trade works.
He doesn't understand how tariffs work. A few people have
pointed out that Russia has no tariffs put on it,
which is suggestive, although there's trade sanctions anyway, so that
may be that there was no trade until you realize
that they put tariffs on the unpopulated McDonald Hurd Island,

(36:46):
which has a population around four thousand penguins, who I
guess are the biggest penguin manufacturing facility in the southern
hemisphere at least.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I think Feathers McGraw was most unhappy about that.

Speaker 4 (36:59):
Of all the people to annoy it, I wouldn't be
annoying Feathers McGraw from Wallace and Gronment.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
No way.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
He's started to wind them back. He's given everyone ninety days,
which to me seems like a coward's dark as he's
realized this has gone too far too quickly. It's one
thing to trash the economy like they tried in Brexit
so they could short the pound and they missed the
deadline because the Brexiteers did it, and they were stopped
by anti Brexit people. So a lot of money was

(37:26):
lost by people who thought they were going to make
a lot of money. I don't even think that there
was that level of strategy.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
It's just we.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
Will crash the economy, will buy all the stocks when
they were low, and we'll sell them when it bounces back.
There was no bouncing back under that model, and so
he's now got ninety days to think about how can
he wreck the economy without wregging it so much that
it gets wrecked for everybody, not just the poor.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
And small and the general rules of politics during an
election campaign is that the Electric will assess what the
government has done over the past three years and then
consider whether it's competent enough to continue for the next
three years. So, if you like, it's a combination of
assessing the past and assessing the future prospects as well,

(38:11):
but also comparing the government with whether the opposition can
do any better. But when there's turmoil on the horizon,
which is what's happening right now, I think this changes
that equation. It's almost like crisis management and not wanting
too much upheaval or too much change, And the Treasurer
Jim Chalmers, in this situation can say, well, look at

(38:34):
our record. We're managing the economy during the very difficult
times in the past, and that record is not perfect,
but I think generally he has been competent. And whatever
we might think about the competence of the Liberal Party
or whether they keep saying that they are the better
economic managers, which they are clearly not, during these times
of turmoil or potential termoil, the Electric tends to gravitate

(38:56):
towards what they do know rather than what they don't know.
In someonunlike Angus Taylor. And the other point is that
the Labor Party can also highlight well, okay, there is
a lot of international termoil on the markets at the moment,
and the person who's creating a lot of this is
the United States President Donald Trump. And who in Australia

(39:16):
loves Donald Trump and is copying a lot of his
policy ideas well, that's Peter Dutton, and that's what they
want to introduce here. And I think it was a
really big mistake for Peter Dunton to wed himself too
closely to Donald Trump, not just because the policy ideas
are terrible, but associating himself with someone who was on
the way to destroying the US economy and upending the

(39:39):
global markets.

Speaker 4 (39:41):
Timu Trump they were calling, which I think is a
great name. It didn't quite have the stickability of Fizzer
for Malcolm Turnbull for example, or Dickhead for Scott Morrison,
but it says all you need to know. The other thing, too,
which none of Donald Trump's fans seem to get, is
that Trump will ruin your life. How many of his bright,

(40:03):
shining young things with promise ended up in jail, ended
up with ruined careers, ended up unemployable, ended up completely
trashed as human beings. Trump uses people, abuses them, and
for some reason hasn't had the consequence. And I think
it's the triumph of the stupid, and that Trump's too

(40:24):
stupid to think of consequence. Or if I destroy this person,
that might be bad down the track, so I better
protect them. No, just bang gone, And then when things
happen down the track, I put my trust in the
wrong people always How a CEO genius salesman can continually
put his trust in the wrong people again and again

(40:44):
and again and again and retain this self belief and
the belief of his followers. Now he's lost a lot
of those followers, let's be fair, but there's still that
core of people who will accept that he has done
nothing wrong and that everything he does is genius. And
if we don't understand or if it looks bad, it's
because we're not thinking at his level. But I think
it's just because he doesn't think. He just does and

(41:07):
then moves on to the next thing. And then you're
Steve Bannon, who's back in his side. I don't know
what Steve Bannon is thinking. You went to jail for
the guy Michael Cohen, who will never talk to Trump
again except in a court room. Jd Vance is heading
that way. Mike Pence. It went extremely badly for Mike Pence.
Mike Pence ended up getting sympathy from the left because

(41:30):
Trump's followers had decided that Pence had betrayed Trump by
following the Constitution, and we're going to hang him. Dutton
will be the same, cling like a limpet to the
hull of the Dutton chip and then just scraped off
and discarded when he's not useful. And Dutton may never
be useful to Trump. And while there are people in
Australia who do like Donald Trump, more people don't. And that,

(41:53):
as much as anything else, is going to cost Dutton
seats in this election.

Speaker 9 (42:00):
Convoy of paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crests and Society,
civil defense teams and a UN employee are responding to
a plea for help for me. Their vehicles are marked,
their emergency lights are clearly visible. When the convoys stops

(42:20):
is ready, soldiers opened fire for minutes on end.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
There was an incident in Palestine last week where fifteen
paramedic and rescue workers were killed by Israel defense forces
and all the evidence points of them being executed, and
the killings, genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the IDF
in Palestine and supported and condoned by the government of
Israel have continued over the past two months, and that

(42:47):
includes women, children, aid workers, medics and journalists. And I'm
not suggesting that killing many is okay and not a problem,
but all of these people are less likely to be
part of the Hamas that Israeli deeps going on about.
But no one seems to be spared at the moment.
And we suggested a few weeks ago that Palestine in
the Middle East wouldn't feature it all during this election

(43:09):
campaign and that the government would hope that the issue
would just go away. Here's the Foreign Minister, Pennywong asked
about this incident over the weekend.

Speaker 10 (43:19):
What I have said is there needs to be a
full and thorough investigation into this. And what I have
consistently said since the conflict in guards have agan and
since the horrific events of October seven with the terrorist
attack by Hamas, is that we want to cease fire,
we want hostages to be returned, and we want international

(43:39):
law and international humanitarian law to be observed by all parties.
Now international humanitarian law requires, amongst other things, humanitarian workers
to be protected, then that applies to everybody. And we
are working with other countries on a declaration for the
Protection of humanitarian personnel. That's something I've engaged with many

(44:01):
countries on because it is time that the world remembered
and reaffirmed the commitment we all gave each other in
the aftermath of World War II that we would protect
humanitarian workers as well as civilian.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
So Penny Wang is working on a declaration and David
I'm sure that they will sort things out. And these
are the same talking points and rubbish from before and
whatever the Liberal parties asked about this, they just keep
reverting to talking about hamas and anti Semitism. So anyone
looking for some clarity on Australia's position on Gaza, or

(44:35):
at least calling out Israel for its war crimes, they
won't be getting that during this election campaign from the
major parties. Here's the Prime Minister speaking about this issue
during the week.

Speaker 5 (44:47):
I certainly understand that for many Australians of particularly those
with families or relatives either in Israel or in Gaza
or indeed in Lebanon, this has been a very traumatic period.
My government's approaches that every innocent life matters and we

(45:07):
want to see a cease fire. We want to see
hostages released, we want to see aid get through to Gaza.
We have made sure as well that Australia has taken
I think a responsible position of continuing to call for
not just the short term issues in terms of ceasefire,
aid to people in Gaza, the release of hostages, but

(45:30):
also our principled stance of a two state solution. I
want to see both Israelis and Palestinians live in peace
and security side by side.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
And again this doesn't really say much. No one really
knows what a two state solution means anymore, but you'd
expect that everything should be up for discussion during an
election campaign. But there are certain areas that major parties
just don't want to deal with. The Australian They've got
a different approach to this, and asign from a small
number of independents in Western Sydney and out of Melbourne

(46:06):
and those affiliated with the Muslim Vote Bloc, these are
the only ones who are prepared to call it out
for what it is. Here's the leader of the Australian Greens,
Adam Bant.

Speaker 11 (46:17):
You now have tens of thousands of children who have
been killed by an army and who have been separated
from their parents. A healthcare system has been destroyed, people's
homes have been reduced to rubble. Amnesty International says there's
a genocide occurring. Okay, we've said that, but if you
don't necessarily believe us listened to Amsty International. There are

(46:39):
now international corps that have issued arrest warrants for the
extremist Prime Minister Benjamin Etnahu. We have just said from
day one that the people of Palestine and the people
of Israel are both entitled to live in a just
and lasting peace and have their rights to self determine

(47:00):
nation recognized under international law. And we've said that like
that has to be premise on and ending of the
occupation of Palestine, because that is the only way that
there can be that just and lasting peace. Our position
is grounded in humanity, it's grounded.

Speaker 7 (47:18):
In international law.

Speaker 11 (47:20):
I suspect that at this election there are going to
be many people who will be voting on the basis
of the Australian government's backing of this invasion. There will
be many people who are going to change their vote
on that. So we're going to keep saying very very strongly,
like as we see now the ceasefire failing to hold,

(47:42):
and we see paramedics kill, we see more invasions, we
see more deaths, We're going to keep saying this killing's
got to stop. The killing has to stop.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
And I think this will be the case, David, that
there will be a lot of people who will change
their vote based on the government's lack of interest and
action in what's been happening in Palestine.

Speaker 10 (48:03):
Now.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
It probably won't be enough to change the election outcome,
but I think it will be enough to let people
in government know that they need to do a lot
more in this area to support the people of Palestine
practically and diplomatically and not just listen to the Israel
lobbyists and Zionist groups in Australia.

Speaker 4 (48:21):
Yeah, it was a terrible incident, and then again they
laid about it, and then the cameras came out and
said no, they were clearly ambulances. The Red Crescent, the
Islamic equivalent to the Red Cross, both brilliant organizations both compassionate,
positive organizations that do a lot of good in very
bad circumstances. The Red Crescent basically claimed that we had

(48:45):
our lights on. The Israeli Defense for Us said, well, no,
the lights went on. We could see these large vehicles
coming over the hill. We thought they were the reinforcements,
so we thought we'd better take care of them before
it escalated. But when the film was released, it turned
out that they had their sirens on, that the Red
Crescent signs were clearly visible. Israel had yet again committed

(49:06):
another war crime. I'm not quite sure how much longer
this can go on, and I'm hoping that Australia will
start to distance itself and stop listening and stop being
scared of the Israel lobby or the Zionist lobby, and
let the truth come out and if they do the
right thing, and let that come out too. I'm all

(49:28):
about what happened the facts of the matter, and at
the moment, the facts of the matter are being obscured
by people who don't want the facts to come out,
and that's just not good enough in a modern democracy.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
This is new politics. Available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon,
Audible and YouTube. And also available to support it Patreon,
substack and at our website newpolitics dot com dot au.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
We have the first public leadership debate of the campaign
and it was a pretty lacklust affair. Both leaders were
asked questions from the audience and both answered according to
their respective talking points.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
Thanks to the hard work of Australians, including the people
in this room, inflation is down, wages are up, unemployment
is low at four point one percent, We've created one
million jobs and importantly interest rates have started to fall.
What this selection is about, though, is what happens next,
whether we continue to build on those foundations with a

(50:55):
tax cut for all fourteen million Australians, strengthy Medicare, including
those bulk billing rates getting up to ninety percent, and
making sure we have urgent care clinics, free tafe, the
twenty percent of student debt, and making more things here
in Australia through a future major in Australia. Now is

(51:16):
not the time to cut. Now is not the time
to look backwards. Now is the time to look forward
and seize the opportunities and build Australia's future.

Speaker 7 (51:27):
People have seen the government make mistakes, starting with the
Voice and priorities that just haven't accorded with your own priorities.
Almost thirty thousand small businesses have gone broken. Behind each
one of those stories, there is somebody who's lost their
house or lost their life savings. People have gone backwards
because when you go to the supermarket now you're now
paying thirty percent more for groceries, paying about thirty two

(51:50):
percent more for your electricity. And the Prime Minister promised
at one of these debates at the last election that
your power bills would go down by two hundred and
seventy five dollars. Instead they're up thirteen hundred dollars. I
want to provide support to Australians from the first day
that were elected, and that is through a twenty five
cent a leader cut to fuel both diesel and unlettered.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
It wasn't really a debate at all and there was
virtually no interaction between the two leaders. It was probably
more of a warm up act for Anthony Albanesi and
Peter Dunton, and the debate was mainly available through Sky
News and the Daily Telegraph website, but only if you
had a subscription. You could watch it for free through
the Sky News app, but not many people would have

(52:32):
watched this election debate. Both leaders I think performed well
according to their respective talking points. Anthony Albanesi has a
good story to tell, but just doesn't seem to be
able to tell it effectively. Peter Dunton should have been
crucified in this sort of forum, but wasn't. And there's
also the question of who performed better. It probably was
Albanesi marginally. But the studio of one hundred people chosen

(52:54):
by a research company and chosen as completely undecided people,
four percent said that Albanese won, thirty five percent said
that Dutton won, and twenty one percent were undecided, So
they're still twenty one percent of the undecided who are
still undecided. And Bromwin Bishop was very certain about who
won the debate.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Now, bron Wan starting with you, what's your verdict?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
How did that go?

Speaker 9 (53:19):
Who won? Well?

Speaker 4 (53:20):
To me, it was clear that Peter Duppin did win.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
There will be two more of these debates during the campaign,
but they don't really mean that much because a labor
leader has won every election debate or forum over the
past fifteen years. But Anthony Albanese is the only Labor
leader who has gone on to win the elections, so
winning the debate doesn't really mean much more than just
actually winning the debate, and we'll probably keep having them

(53:46):
because of tradition, and I do like watching them just
to see how leaders can synthesize their ideas under pressure.
But there's not much of a debate, and the skill
of oratory certainly isn't there, and there's probably not much
points of these boats anymore.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
I've never liked this formalized focus group talking points. Move
your hands in that particular way, dressed properly. If I
can go all nationalists for a moment. The best speakers
in Australian politics hone their skills in front of unruly,
unpredictable crowds. John Howard thrived in front of a hostile crowd.

(54:25):
I saw it, and he could win the crowd over.
I saw this when he was just being dumped as
lead to the Opposition in the early nineties for what
was thought to be the final time, and he was finished.
And I saw him at a debate at the University
in New South Wales, where I was a young fresh
raised student who was a speech on why Australia should
retain the monarchy to the New South Wales Law School,
a group of students not renowned for their monarchical pro

(54:49):
monarchy views. We can go to Whitlam, who was a
master at handling Heckler's famously to one guy who'd been
interrupting constantly for the whole twenty minute speech and the
guy says, what are you going to do about abortion policy?
And Whitlam shoots back, in your case, I wish it
was retrospective. This is much more interesting. Bob Benzi, similar thing,

(55:11):
what are you going to do about owsing? I'm going
to put a nation in front of it. When's the
crowd over? Ted Theodore, who was Treasurer in the Scullen
government briefly and Premier of Queensland, at a shier shed
in Queensland, so you know, extremely rough, and a guy
continually hassled him. He said, come up here and give

(55:31):
you a point of view, and the guy stepped on
the stage and Theodore picked him up and threw him off.
How to deal with rough crowds? Probably my favorite George Reid,
not my favorite politician, but one of my favorite retorts.
George Reid was a Premier of New South Wales and
then Prime Minister of Australia, and he was a rather
rotund gentleman, and someone yelled out, what are you going

(55:52):
to call it, George, referring to the fact that he
looked pregnant, and he said, well, if it's a girl,
I will name it after the Queen. If it's a boy,
I will name it after the prints. Well, but if
it's what I think it is, all piss and wind,
I'll name it after you, young fella. And that type of
thing is far more entertaining. And I'm not saying that
we should just have the candidate's whole insult at the audience.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Well, that would make it a lot more interesting, but
I think a lot of political leaders just try to
be as inoffensive as possible.

Speaker 4 (56:21):
Yeah, they were still getting their points across. And with
John Howard, he didn't say anything particularly funny, but he
stood up in front of that crowd and basically spoke
them down to the point where they could at least
see where he was coming from. Even if they weren't
going to become staunch monarchists, they could see his point.
And I think that's how I do. I'd just get in,

(56:42):
you know, fifty unionists of the old school fifty Clive
Palmer lunatics, fifty staunch liberal voters and a couple of
undecided and turn the microphone on, let them start speaking,
and not shut the crowd up. If you've got a comment,
just yell it out see what happens. And I think

(57:03):
that would one improve public debate a great bit because
suddenly you've got to think on your feet. You can't
go to talking points, you can't go to well point
six of nine points. You've got to think on your feet.
You've got to do it. And it's a very Australian
thing too. I also I couldn't see either Peter Dutton
or Anthony Albanesi calling someone up on the stage and

(57:24):
throwing them off. Dutton would probably want to, but I
don't think he's got the ability anymore, and Anthony Albanesi
isn't violent in that kind of way. This is a
good thing that they wouldn't do that, by the way,
but suddenly having them face a tough audience and having
the audience go to town would one make for much better
television and two really show the metal as the leader.

(57:48):
And you may be surprised in who wins this type
of stuff, and you may not, and you might have
neither candidate doing very well, and that's fine too, rather
than these bland orchestrated duller in which you come out
not much wayser than when you went in.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
And there were some strange incidents during the campaign, and
I think a campaign is usually the time when the
true character of leaders and all of the candidates does
come through, and there's always going to be missaps and
strange things that happened during a campaign. And Peter Dutton
just happened to kick a football into the head of
a Channel ten cameraman during an election stunt on the

(58:36):
football field open too, and the cameraman is also a
former Iraqi refugee and a silence seeker, so it seemed
quite symbolic of Dunton's political career kicking to those less fortunate,

(58:58):
and the response he gave. I think that's actually quite
a strange response. Most people would be horrified and made
sure that the person is okay, but doesn't seem to
take great delight in kicking a football into someone's head,
and then made fun of him for not catching the ball.
He then tried to laugh it off and suggested that
if it was a but and easy that kicked the football.
He would have totally lied about it. Now, it's only

(59:19):
a small incident, David, but it just almost seems sadistic
and totally unempathetic and I just think you have to
do much better than that during a campaign.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
It's a bit reminiscent of Scott Morrison giving the full
body tackle in a game of soccer to the kid
on the that was on the day just before the election.
That you kick the ball and it hit someone in
the head. That could have been wiped off as an accident.
It's very hard to kick that accurately if you're not
a professional.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
I'm not suggesting that he did it deliberately, but of
course it was an accident.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
But his response was quite weird.

Speaker 4 (59:53):
It was a response and even laughing about that he
cut his head open. Head injuries are not earned for
being the easiest things to get around. And I hope
that the cameraman is okay. I think he is. I
think it was a minor thing as far as these
things go. But you don't go to work in an
Australian electoral campaign thinking that you're going to go home

(01:00:13):
with a bandage on your head. It's not a war
zone for example, And yeah, Dutton's triumphant bullying. If there
was anything more that we needed to show that he's
not fit to be the leader of the country that
Australia needs, that was probably it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
And the Prime Minister Anthony Olnezy was also heckled during
the campaign, and he was heckled by a climate change activist.

Speaker 5 (01:00:38):
Saved and the Prince.

Speaker 10 (01:00:46):
And I haven't you want to telling young people like
me to a lifetime I'm climbing after the court.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
We have poor mental hell, this is where are you
you people?

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
When will your government stop prety lit holy gas.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Protect Now you can't argue with that. During this term,
the Labor Government has continued opening up more coal mines
and gas fields, and they've used a wide range of
weasel words to justify these minds and fields, claiming that
they are not actually new, they're just expansions of existing
coal mines and gas fields. And as far as I'm concerned,

(01:01:22):
if you're making an existing coal mine deeper and an
existing gas field bigger, well that's the same as opening
up more coal mines and gas fields. And the Labor
Government has also approved one hundred and seventy three new
fracking wells in Queensland for the benefit of Santos and
Arrow Energy, and during this protest, Anthony Olbhenezi said that
he didn't want to comment about the incident because it

(01:01:44):
would only encourage more people to protest. But this is
the time that people should protest. Most MPs and most
governments are only interested in how their actions affect their votes,
which means that they stay in power if they get
enough votes in an election. And this also means that
they also get their three dollars thirty eight per primary

(01:02:05):
vote and continue to open the doors to donors in
fossil fuel industries. So there's no point in protesting or
demonstrating after the election when it's already been decided. This
is the time that people's voices need to be heard,
whether the Prime Minister likes it or not. There's a

(01:02:28):
new batch of opinion polls and there's not much new
to report here, David. All of these opinion polls are
continuing to show a drift away from the Liberal and
National Coalition, and this would have been in response to the
terrible start of the campaign that the coalition had Last week.
News poll is showing fifty two percent to the Labor
Party in two party preferred voting and forty eight percent

(01:02:49):
of the coalition. The Morgan pole is fifty three point
five to forty six point five percent in favor of
the Labor Party. UGOV is fifty one forty nine to
the Labor Party as well, And it actually needs to
be the opposite of these numbers if the coalition is
to get into a position of either minority government or
majority government. And this is still unpredictable, but the two

(01:03:12):
party preferred vote is getting close to the final results
recorded at the twenty twenty two federal election. And we've
also explained before that Labor could increase its vote compared
to the last election but lose seats, and conversely, it
could actually decrease its vote but actually pick up seats.
So it's not going to be the usual type of
election process that we go through on election night. But

(01:03:35):
I think it's still much rather been the position of
a Labor party than the position of the coalition at
the moment.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Yeah, I know Labor will try and make themselves underdogs
because one of the received wisdom is that the underdog
tends to get sympathy votes, which can push you over
the line I've been saying since election note that it's
mathematically impossible for the Liberal Party to win this election.
Nothing has happened in the last three years that has

(01:04:03):
changed my mind. I did think they might get probably four,
but maybe up to eight seats, which would have been
good news for Peter Dutton. There's still no any government,
but they're a little bit closer and it would have
shown a shift in voting intentions and all of that.
At this point, after Dutton flying away from Cyclone Alfred
and then everything else that's happened over the last week,

(01:04:26):
I'm not sure that they're going to gain one seat.
They might win some seats that they didn't have, but
they're going to lose other seats too. He's probably lost Queensland,
i think, and he suddenly lost Southern Queensland. These things matter,
oh not.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
So the Liberal Party couldn't have had a worse week
than they did last week. So you'd expect that they
will improve during the campaign. And Peter Dutton did seem
more assured in that sky On News debate, but the
problem would have been that not many people would have
watched that, and he lost the debate anyway. He also
had the pressure of his father having a heart attacked
a few hours before the debate, so that would have

(01:05:02):
had a big effect.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
On him as well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
But the week just gone and next week, week three,
these are critical parts of the election campaign, and I
think you've mentioned that right at the beginning of this episode.
And the way that campaigns are run these days, there
doesn't seem to be the big moment that can swing
elections anymore. But if there is to be a big
moment and that goes for both sides, well it has

(01:05:25):
to happen next week because the school holidays will have started,
and as we've pointed out in the past, school holidays
don't affect everyone, but they do affect a large number
of people and children. Of course, they don't vote, but
during this time, key messages will be lost or diffused.
And then after the school holidays there's the Easter break,
and then the day after the Ester break that's when

(01:05:46):
the early voting begins. And that's not to say that
there won't be any campaigning at all. Once the early
voting period commences, that's when a lot of this stuff
will ramp up. But you do need to get your
key messages out there earlier on during the camp and
the coalition just seems have fallen too far behind at
this stage.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Yeah, momentum is everything, and you can regain momentum, but
I think I think they've lost too much for momentum
to be able to get through. I think it's going
to be for them to make any gains, it's going
to have to be something catastrophic, which nobody, not even then,
wants the death of somebody prominent or or something like that.

(01:06:25):
And nobody wants that. And of course Peter Dutton's father
having that hard to take a couple hours before is
something that is terribly unfortunate. And I hope his father
is okay. He's a very old man, I understand, and
we don't want that happening either. Hopefully Peter Dutton's father
is okay and recovers.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Well, that's it for this episode of New Politics.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Thanks for listening in, and if you'd like to support
our style of journalism and commentary, please make your donation
at our website at newpolitics dot com dot are you.
We don't beg plead, besiech or gaslight you about journalism
coming to an end. We just keep it very simple.
If you like what we do please send some support
our way. It keeps our commitment to independent journalism ticking along.

(01:07:13):
I'm Eddie Djokovic. Thanks for listening in, and it's goodbye
to our listeners.

Speaker 4 (01:07:17):
I'm David Lewis. We'll see you next time.