Back to Back Barries: Angus Taylor’s multiculturalism mess

I'm Barry Cassidy.And I'm Tony Barry.Welcome to Back to Back Barries, a podcast from Guardian Australia.Well, quite a mixed bag this week.Two -tiered independence, former political party.Angus Taylor gets in a bit of a mess trying to define multiculturalism, and the government cuts a deal with the Greens to guarantee passage of its taxation reforms.

But first, Tony, not every day that we get a new political party, two independents, well -established independents.Zali Stegall and Allegra Spender are starting it up.It's a big call.It's a big call to really discard what is the mantra, the obvious appeal of standing as an independent.

Yeah, it is a big call because they obviously won those seats in 2022, but then got reelected on that same model.And now they've effectively changed the model.I think it's actually probably a good idea.It's an ambitious idea.But the danger for them, I feel, and obviously I know the seat of Indi they won in 2013 and then passed on to another independent, which was an incredible achievement.But there will come a point where voters in their seats will go, well, what's the purpose of this?

Every political movement or political party needs a purpose.And one of the big problems of the Liberal Party at the moment is it has no purpose.They used to be the party of economic management, and they've lost that narrative well and truly.They're coming third in some polling.And similarly, the independents also need a purpose.And I think the recent tax debate exposed them a little bit.

The other thing that I think is at play here is Senate seats.I think they've realised that real influence and real relevance at the moment comes in the Senate, where you can horse trade.And of course, I think Allegra Spender voted against the text package in the House of Reps. But of course, when Labor's got 94 seats, her vote is not relevant.If they had some Senators in place, then they would be relevant.

And also, of course, the other issue is campaign funding.The two major parties cut a deal that is not fair to the independents essentially.The major parties get tens of millions of dollars, the ability to spend tens of millions of dollars in a campaign before they hit the cap, whereas the independents are restricted to something below a million, I think.In a sense, that's fair, because there are more members of the major parties than there are independents.But still, they cut a deal.They got a raw deal, and this is part of that, I think, to try and test the system and get themselves up to par on that.

But anyway, I don't think it makes sense myself.I don't like the feel of it, that independents can suddenly have a party structure, even if they don't have leaders, and even if they don't have members, they still have volunteers.not members under this plan, but good on them for giving it a go.And two of them have been prepared to go out there and try it.And two years from now, I think we'll all be a lot clearer as to whether the negatives outweigh the pluses and whether there is a backlash in terms of the seats for what they've done.I think the other independents will be keeping an eye on it.

Somebody like Zoe Daniel certainly will be.If she can beat Tim Wilson to the next election, then she's left it open as well.

And the thing is, if you don't have money, you don't have a campaign.That's the brutal truth of it.hundreds of good, good people who've run as independents, but they didn't have any significant campaign resources and they got flogged.Um, they had an incredibly professional operation, uh, using, uh, volunteers, but also software and, um, you know, very significant data matching and data analysis behind their campaign.So that was all funded by significant money.So there's a longevity argument there.

Um, And also, you know, that sort of notion of like they didn't die where the independent left and then Helen Haynes won.which was an extraordinary achievement in hindsight.

Yeah, it was.Okay, well, let's go to the tax reforms.They've gone through the Senate.Look, Labor took a bit of a hit over these reforms.They started with broken promises, and they ended with backflips and compromises, but they got there.They got the essential underpinnings in place.

They've now brought into the discussion a second debate around the NDIS and the future of that.But you'd take it, wouldn't you?You'd take it if you set out to achieve these reforms, and they get through largely unscathed, but with a couple of, I think, sensible compromises?

Well, they had to do the most recent change, which was the labelled as the death tax, the widow tax, as it was labelled, that was a scare campaign just begging to be run.So that was wise to neutralise that as soon as possible.But I think they're still incredibly exposed to a decent scare campaign, if one could ever be organised.If I was at college, I'd be talking about a tax on your family home.And Labor can deny it all they like, and The riposte to that is, well, that's how we know it's true because you've denied it, just like you denied the last two taxes.I think the other thing that, you know, the failure of Albanese, you know, he promised not to do something and then he broke that promise.

And when you look at the UK, where Keir Starmer this week had to resign just before his second anniversary as prime minister, he won in a landslide two weeks, two years ago this week.And it's a salutary lesson, because also Boris Johnson also won in a landslide for his respective party.He lasted just three years in all, two and a half years after that landslide win, and killedStarmer lasted just two.And whilst they didn't win a huge primary vote, it's first past the post over there, they won huge seats.And Albanese, I think, is smart enough to know that there's a lesson there for him as well.

I think there are other lessons for Albanese in what's going on in Britain as well.And we'll get back to that a little bit later on.But I want to talk about Angus Taylor and all of this, because he hasn't come out of it particularly well either.And I was struck by what Dennis Shanahan had to say in The Australian.He said, it's incredible, unbelievable, that after delivering the worst budget in 30 years, Labor is back on track.He likened Angus Taylor's performance to the World Cup Soccer in the parlance that he was given a penalty shot and he missed.

And then he went on to say, Labor did not leave Angus Taylor flat footed.They left him flat on his ass.That's pretty strong language.

Yeah.Hugely from Dennis Shanahan, who I think it's fair to say was a strong admirer of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.And Tony Abbott, of course, is very close to Angus and he's his federal president with Angus's support.That was an article that was difficult to miss.James Masola also wrote a piece talking about Angus's leadership for the longer term.And we also had this week the spectacle of both him and Abbott being at odds with each other in the Australian.

The stories were almost side by side.Abbott talked about the core Anglo -Celtic culture.that was important for Australia.And Angus started talking about a form of multiculturalism that exists.So once again, the coalition are getting caught, bogged down in this detail about the definition of things.We saw that for net zero, where they tied themselves in knots over a definition that I can tell you in focus groups, nobody could define what net zero was in a technical point of view.

And now they've got thisin this sort of incredible argument about, you know, what is multiculturalism.

And when he was asked the direct question, five times, do you support multiculturalism?He couldn't do it.He came back and had another go later on, but he couldn't bring himself to support the concept unambiguously.And all around him, his colleagues were.They were just saying it straight out.And there was a poll out this week that showed 75 % support for multiculturalism in Australia.

That slipped a bit, but 75 % is quite high.But while he's saying all of this, Jane Hume said, I don't care where we come from.This is a ridiculous argument.I can't believe that We managed to get ourselves into this, which is pretty direct.One of the backbenchers just said straight out that it was not on.Anne Ruston, she said that Australia was built on multiculturalism.

So it's, I mean, where does he stand right now, Angus Taylor?

First of all, how hard is it just to sort of get that definition right?Or just sort of say, I refer you to the Seekers, fourth verse, we are one, we are many, and from all the lands of earth we come.I mean, again, they're making the simple impossible.And it's undermining their messaging.It's undermining their purpose.And I think, you know, it's just more evidence that the coalition are just, you know, the wheels are spinning.

The quote from Andrew McLachlan in the back winter was, embrace reality of modern Australia.That's coming with their own crew.And then you mentioned the Tony Abbadad, and he said that the core Anglo -Saxon culture must never change.And went on to say, by the way, this was in an exclusive interview with Peter Credlin.She managed to secure that interview.There you go.

And he went on to say, you know,that he wants the Judeo -Christian society, essentially.And it's, you know, you really have a thousand religions out there.That's a thousand gods.And he's basically saying, as president of the Liberal Party, let me decree that there can only be one dominant, one majority religion in this country.It's kind of, why?

But more fundamentally, you know, we've got co -opposition leaders.You've got Angus, and then he's got the shadow opposition leader is Abbott, and then he's got another shadow opposition leader, which is Hanson.And it makes it very tough for him.But he made this problem himself because he supported Tony Abbott's appointment as president of the federal party.He could have easily vetoed that as opposition leader.You do have that veto power.

But he asked for it and now he's got it.

Would you put Andrew Hastie on that list as well?I mean, he did say to the party room this week that he would never bow to One Nation.

Yeah.Well, I think I've long said it's going to be a three -leader term, and I haven't changed my position on that.

Just an email before we go further into One Nation and some of the events of this week.Patty from Port Melbourne asked, how likely is this scenario?One Nation retains its current polling numbers, and so they pick up maybe 60 seats.So they need the coalition to form government.But what if no party wants to deal with One Nation?Would that leave the door open to a possible coalition between Labor and the Liberals?

The first point I would make on that is that if One Nation gets 60 seats, the coalition will be so decimated and they wouldn't have the extra 16 seats to deliver minority government to One Nation.But could you ever see the day when Labor and Liberal choosefor the sake of government, to come into some sort of uncomfortable coalition to keep one nation at bay?

No, I can't.But I would love to see Tim Wilson and Jim Chalmers as co -treasurers.I think that would be fantastic.Good for Australia.Good for the podcast.

Well, once you get a bring to the fore, rhetorically, strategically, how you deal with One Nation.It's a dilemma for both parties, and I went back and had a look at 1998, and that's when Pauline Hanson was in the Parliament.She initially stood as a Liberal, she was sacked, came in as an Independent, then formed One Nation.So she goes to the election, trying to get re -elected under the One Nation banner, and she formed the party.At that time, John Howard was the Prime Minister, and he decided that he would not direct preferences to one nation.The really interesting thing about this, an opinion poll came out in August.

The election was in October 1998.The opinion poll in August said the LNP and the ALP locked at 39 % primary vote.each, what they wouldn't do for that now.39 % each.Now, you would think John Howard would make himself a small target and just try and win office that way.What he did a week after that poll came out, he introduced the GST.

not introduce the debate, and said that he wanted GSD introduced after the election.You know, crazy, brave, suicidal in many respects, but you know what happened when you go back and look at it closely, is that Pauline Hanson had a campaign already underway built on race and bigotry and protectionism and so on.This, the election then became a debate about a big idea, about a big tax initiative, and at the election, 40%.primary vote, the Liberal Party and Coalition, 40 % ALP and John Halbert re -elected.

Yeah, because it was a purpose.He had a purpose.And when you have a big idea, a big debate,you basically flood the zone.And it means that these voices of grievance, as powerful as they will be, particularly in this fragmented media market, but it's harder for them to punch through when everybody's talking about, in that instance, a GST and the virtues or the, you know, the The downsides of it, but that's what everybody was talking about.That was released on August the 13th after a year of positioning on the issue.

And then the election was called at the end of August for the 1st of September, I think, for the 3rd of October.But Hanson wasn't able to punch through and her numbers started coming back to the pack.

Yeah.And no matter how risky, it was a debate about big ideas that left Hanson behind.And the opportunity there, I think, for Labor around this is to do the big idea of their own.And I'd imagine they've got one, and it's probably around PAYE taxes.

Yeah.

I mean, if they make the debate about taxes, it will leave her out of the conversation in a sense, and it'll bring it back to where they want it.

Yeah.And the coalition, they just absolutely have to get onto an economic narrative.They have to offer voters something.They have come up with the indexation on tax, but my sense is Labor's plan will be to bank the revenue from these tax changes.possibly bring in a gas tax next budget.And in the third year of the cycle, there'll be larger tax cuts than what the coalition are effectively offering.

And I hope that gets them over the line.

And you take the debate around that, no matter the outcome, just to keep pulling Hanson out of it.She would struggle to keep up, I think, in those circumstances.And the third arm of all of this is the media and how the media deals with One Nation.And wehad a discussion on that last week.But there was a fascinating article by Tina Quinn in the National Herald, and she asked the question, how do you cover a politician who is simultaneously demonstrably flawed and and yet undeniably resonant.

She found this quote from Geoff Kidney in the Sydney Morning Herald 30 years ago.He wrote this, I think, three weeks after her maiden speech, and he said her diagnosis of Australia's problems is simplistic and chilling.Her solutions are populist and unworkable.That was as I said, 30 years ago.But the really interesting thing too was Margot Kingston, who's the biographer and followed Pauline Hanson around a lot, knows her really well.And she contributed to the article and said that in the regions, she's really popular, she's authentic, she speaks their language.

But in 1998, the media made her accountable.And it showed.The point now, though, that she makes is even if they were to do that this time around, it's different.It's so different.And you've made this point before about 1998 was the last analogue election.And she said that Pauline Hanson needed us, the media.

And we needed her.Now she doesn't need us anymore.And it's true that Pauline Hanson can go around the big parties, go around the major parties and go around the media.She's got Sky at the Dark to a large extent.She's got Channel 7.But the main thing is it doesn't matter about the rest of the media keeping her accountable or not.

She's still got a lot of unfiltered, untested mechanisms to get her message out.

The mainstream media still has an important role to play, which I think they're playing pretty well.responsibly in this regard, in the main part, because by airing her prescriptions for Australia, and she did that National Press Club, it allows people to think about them.We discussed this last week.I think she's put a lot of targets on her with some of the ideas she's come up with.It allows her opponents to startventilating them.

And I think people might reconsider their support for her.And the worst thing you can do with Hanson and her supporter base at the moment is to cancel her or these protests that they're having outside, you know, events that she's doing are just ridiculous and counterproductive because that just pushes people towards her.And the best thing is to get her arguments out there, because I think a lot of Australians will look at some of her prescriptions and say, well, that's actually not going to really help or that's not great for me personally.And at the end of the day, people vote on things that are personally relevant to them and their personal consequences.

Yeah.And there were quite a few issues, I think, where for the first time, she was put on the back foot of it as a result of some of the contributions that she made at the press club.The anti -worker stuff, I think, got a pretty good run, but the monoculture, the monoculture thing took off and, you know, People started to think about that a little more than perhaps they have in the past.And the other observation she made was that, you know, why can't we be more like Japan?You know, they're monoculture.Monoculture.

And she sort of walked that back when she started to realise that's probably not the best argument for the sort of Australia that you actually want.Look, we have got more to talk about in the UK, so we'll take a break.Be back in a sec.Okay, well Britain in a moment.Now I mentioned in passing before about how the debate around taxes now shifted the debate to the NDIS and that's because the deal was done, that Labor gave the Greens a longer process to investigate those reforms.But to me, I think the best outcome in terms of the NDIS We should never lose sight of what the shape of the Parliament is now, not trying to second guess how it will look after the next election.

And right now the two major parties...the parliament, the Labor Party and the Coalition, and I think the best outcome for an issue like this is that those two parties get together and come up with something that is sustainable and viable.The risk there is that certainly in the eyes of some, you would go back to the point where it was at risk.You might allow the exploitations to happen again, the overspend would happen again, and then the whole system could again be at risk.Whereas I think if it comes to that and it really does become messy, Labor should really have a talk to the Coalition, a serious talk to them about it.

I actually agree with you.And I think not only would it be a good policy outcome, I actually think it might restore some faith in the two -party system.Now, I know that sounds very Pollyanna, but I can tell you from the focus groups...And that's in both parties' interests.Absolutely.I can tell you in the focus groups that is something that is frustrating them enormously.

And it is pushing, you know, around a fifth of One Nation voters have gone to them purely because of the two -party system, the uniparty, as Cory Bernardi and others call it, and its perceived failures.So an outcome where they work together and put politics aside is actually what the voters have a real appetite for.And it comes back to COVID, which, you know, there'll be books written about COVID for decades and decades to come.But one of the things that's still brought up, which I think is really interesting, is Voters have seen governments working together, state and federal, and cross -partisan.So when the crisis was really at its teeth, JobKeeper came up, and within 48 hours, it was operational, and people had money in their accounts.And so voters have seen what can happen if political parties really want better outcomes for Australia in a crisis.

And they look back on that, and that is one of the many reasonsOne Nation has surged, because they sort of say, well, you can do it, so don't tell me you can't.And I want to see more of that.

Now, there was rather extraordinary development in Victorian politics during the week.Take us through that.

Well, once again, more evidence that the only thing stopping the Victorian Liberal Party from winning this next election is the Victorian Liberal Party.And extraordinary claims this week about a community event, a Macedonian function, that both Matthew Guy, former opposition leader, and Moira Deeming were at, who's a Liberal MP for the Western suburbs.And she claimed that Matthew put her in a headlock type grip.However, Fortunately for Matthew, CCTV footage caught the incident, which everybody has reached the same conclusion that there was no headlock or any sort of force, physical force at all.But what it does come down to is the instability in the Liberal Party and what that means for their preparations for the election.And once again, politicians talking about themselves.

Yeah.And what are they going to do about it?What are they going to do about Maura Deeming?Because Jess Wilson, it's true, has been operating really well.She's putting the party in a position, if the party behaves itself, where they can contest the next election.Serious chance of winning it.

And something like this is going to come out of the blue.And these are not the kind of things that you can just brush away and then they won't recur.They'll come back.They'll keep coming back.And she's got friends outside of Victoria as well.Influential friends in the Liberal Party.

The Victorian Liberal Party, they can't just expect Jess Wilson, who's a good political product, to do all the heavy lifting and to get him elected.No, it's like kicking the ball to Nick Dacos and expecting him to do all the work.They all actually need to chip in.They all need to be disciplined.And they all need to be working together.Because there's an indefinable something in political campaigns.

We talk about polling, and who issues management, who's the best on certain issues, and the salience of issues, and differentiated positions.And all these things are very valid.But there is also this other element, which is where the opposition comes in.are determined to win and will do anything to win.That discipline that you see that lacks in a lot of immature or first term oppositions, because they're not really hungry.And the classic example is Kevin Rudd when he became opposition leader and they adopted a position on offshore processing, which sent a message that actually they want to win.

And there would have been people from the left caucus who would have opposed that enormously, but they knew that if they wanted to win, they had to suck it up.

Yeah.Okay.Britain now, and you mentioned it a little earlier, but you have the scourge of the rotating leadership.Five -year terms in the UK, you wouldn't think you would have this kind of situation, but they've had seven prime ministers now in 10 years.That's quite extraordinary.

Yeah.In the UK's defence, one of them was Liz Truss.I don't think you can blame voters or anyone else for that disaster.You know, Boris was obviously a fairly flawed character, but again, he had a huge majority and lost internal and external support.And the same is said of Keir Starmer.Voters and party members love a winner.

And certainly Burnham is a winner at the moment.But I think he's going to have the same problems that Keir Starmer had, because voters want change.and Keir Starmer wasn't the change they wanted.I'm not sure what Burnham brings to the table which will bring about that change.He certainlydifferent looking politician.

He's a very good communicator.

Yep, yep.

He's proved himself that he can get the votes where Labor needs it, basically in their own base, in the working class base that seems to have deserted them in other places.

Yeah, I think what you'll find is some of those reform voters that previously voted for Labor will come back in the hope that he is the change they were looking for.But I think unless they, you know, we talk about mood direction and in the last poll that we did for the Fin Review, 63 % of Australians said we're heading in the wrong direction.One of the credible pollsters over there, Luke Trill, he has it at 75 % wrong direction.You know, three quarters of people in the UK say the country's heading in the wrong direction.

Yeah, and a lot of those are the working class people who think that Labor doesn't recognize them anymore.And that's part of the risk for them is that this Tony Blair's ongoing influence needs to be resisted because he had this brand of kind of merchandise politics.It was bereft of conscience.It was academic and kind of uncaring.And that's I think there's the lessons there for labor in Australia around that as well, because Tony Blair still has some support, despite what he's doing with Donald Trump.On Nigel Farage too, I just wonder whether they're ready for a bit of a setback, given the attention that's now coming on the money that Nigel Farage received from a Thai crypto billionaire just before he went into politics.

Five million pounds.

10 million Australian.

10 million Australian and he said it was basically there to take care of his security for the rest of his life.It just happened though, he bought a house worth 1 .4 million pounds sometime shortly after that.That sort of thing, it wouldn't take too many issues like that to set them back a bit.

There might be a lesson there for Pauline Hanson here in Australia.

Yep, there might be.She got the aeroplane after all, but to this point, that doesn't seem to have had anything like that.

But there'll be a tipping point, I think, on that particular perception.

Yeah.OK, I just want to finish up with an email.Will from California is somebody that those who listen to our program regularly don't know that he's a regular correspondent, Will from California, but his brother Chris has chipped in this week.He said that he's used part of our program, specifically our migration with his year 10 history class.He was impressed by your observation some time ago that the political landscape is fractured and operates in smaller and smaller echo chambers.And that's certainly the case and remains the case.

He raised other points, but I will finish up with this.He said that my wife is a first generation Australian Chinese.She grew up in Rosebud.When she and my kids give me a huge cuddle at the end of the day, it's the best feeling in the world.And to me, that's what it means to be Swamp Eye Asians.Nice touch.

Well, that's it for this week.This podcast was made on the sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri people.It was produced by Daniel Simo and Sarah Simage.

The executive producer is Hannah Parks.

I'm Barry Cassidy.

And I'm Tony Barry.And this is Back to Back Barries, a Guardian Australia podcast.