Does One Nation have a ceiling or a wall? – Back to Back Barries podcast

I'm Barry Cassidy, and I'm Tony Barry.Welcome to Back to Back Barry's, a podcast from Guardian Australia, where support for One Nation continues to grow exponentially.We can only guess as to whether there is a ceiling and when that might be reached.But now for the first time, polls, two of them, including Redbridge, are showing them with a higher primary vote than the governing Labor Party.So here's the timeline, because I think occasionally it's worth going back and having a look at it.One nation got 6 .4 % at the last federal election, just over a year ago, 6 .4%.

By October, five months after that, They were getting 12 percent.They were challenging the Greens as the third force.And for the first time, they were polling strongly enough to get seats in the House of Representatives.But then they really started to consolidate.December last year, January this year, when they were getting numbers like 22 percent primary vote, which meant that overtaken the coalition on the primary vote, but still not by enough to win more seats in the coalition.That happened two months ago.

late April, early May.And by then they'd built such a strong level of support that they certainly had the numbers to be the official opposition.And now in the last two or three weeks we see polls that show them outpolling Labor on the primary vote.So their position continues to build.It's feeding on itself.The stronger they're standing in the polls, the more media attention they get, the more the anti -Labor vote jumps on board, persuaded One Nation and not the Coalition.

Tony is the better bet for them.

Yeah, I think late last year when One Nation started cameralising the Coalition vote, a lot of my Labor friends were carrying on like Arsenal supporters.And now, of course, the One Nation monster is coming after them.So The question is, though, what is their ceiling?At the moment, it's 31%, which is extraordinary.And Labor are 28 % in our polls.The really interesting thing to me was, despite a bad budget reception,

coalition vote went back two points.So they weren't the beneficiaries of Labor's lost vote share of three points, which speaks to how people perceive the coalition, not just in terms of economic management, but just their frustration and this sense of Hanson is their wrecking ball.She's their truth teller.They just want to put a flamethrower through the joint.And we've discussed this before, you know, 15 % of voters said, burn it all down in terms of the political system.And 39 % said the system needs major change, and One Nation voters were overrepresented in that cohort.

So there's a real sense of frustration and despondency out there that is fueling this One Nation vote.But they're still two years away from the finish line.And whether they can last the distance or not, I think is going to be really interesting.

Yes, you mentioned Arsenal, even Arsenal had a ceiling and that was the Champions League.But nevertheless, I think we're using the wrong term anyway with ceiling.I think it's the wall, the wall that they're going to hit.And the wall is the wall around the cities.I still can't see any evidence that the One Nation can seriously challenge, apart from the very outer suburbs.If they're going to be true to their base, then the city, I think, is impenetrable to them.

You look at the kind of makeup of city seats, and we see this through the research and the demographics, that they're younger, they're better educated, they're multicultural.That is not fertile ground for One Nation.And the more we hear rumblings about abortion and taking away people's abortion rights, and the more we hear about them, like Barnaby Joyce has described tax cuts, for example, as rubbish.I just cannot see the day when enough city people take them on.

Yeah, we saw in the MRP there were some metropolitan seats which were in danger of One Nation, and certainlyas Labor's primary vote continues to collapse.

But metropolitan or outer suburbs?

Outer suburban, but One Nation are competitive in those outer urban seats on our last poll on the primary vote.They'll almost statistical tie in those outer suburban seats.But we come back to the pure mechanics of a campaign.You know, if you've got, say, $20 million to run a campaign, where do you put that $20 million?Campaigns are an allocation of resources.Now, if I was running the One Nation campaign, I'd say all these regional seats in New South Wales, Queensland in particular, Victoria, they're the lower hanging fruit for us.

I would put all my resources into those seats and make sure we win that.And then maybe the next election, we can sort of look at perhaps expanding the map a bit.The other problem with One Nation over the next two years is You know, the abortion issue came up this week.I think that's going to suppress their vote in some demographics and cohorts.And then, you know, Barnaby made a complete mess of it on Thursday night on Sky After Dark.And if ever there was a good half volley, it's on Sky After Dark for someone like Barnaby Joyce.

And he put it straight into the net.

Yeah, yeah.Let's talk about that, because Andrew Bolt's conclusion at the end of all of that was that One Nation are not ready for government.when these sort of mistakes are made.But Barnaby Joyce went on the program.They were talking about housing.And Pauline Hanson has a policy that foreigners shouldn't own housing.

She got a lot of support for that.People living overseas.But he extended it.to permanent residents, those who have been accepted to live the rest of their lives in this country.And he said that if they owned houses, they'd take them off them in two years if they didn't sell them.It was extraordinary.

And Bolt did make it clear to him, are you talking about permanent residents here?He said, yeah, those who are not citizens.And then, of course, he had to go back andstraighten that out because that's, you're just throwing a bomb into the whole operation.And they are the sorts of things that can happen when Barnaby Joyce, who's really the two I see within the party, is going to make those mistakes.And it throws it forward to me to candidates.

If you're going to win a federal election, you've got to win 76 seats in the House of Representatives.Do you seriously think one nation could come up with 76 credible candidates around the country when the full glare comes on an election campaign and people do focus on who the candidates are?They know who the candidates are, most of them, enough to make a difference.And History shows they can't do it.

Well, arguably they need 150 candidates for the House of Reps. Obviously some seats they'll have no hope in, but you want to harvest votes for the Senate ticket.Because Senate is probably where they will, even if they have some real problems internally and they hit that wall, as you describe it, they still stand to win quite a lot in the Senate.So they're going to need candidates in every seat to harvest votes for the Senate.So there's 150.And plus, you're going to need about 30 candidates for the Senate.You're going to at least need to run two candidates for every state, probably three.

There's no harm in having three on the ticket.That's at least 180 candidates with a microphone.I'd be very nervous about that.We know one fellow here in Victoria who's joined One Nation.He has very strong views on abortion and that's fair enough.He's entitled to his views, but he's not going to want to not articulate those views once given a microphone.

Now, maybe that's fine for their vote.Maybe that won't impact their vote, but maybe it will.

Yeah, well it will in the cities, that vote, and just having total disdain for climate change is enough.that just won't work in the cities.But, you know, when we talk about the kind of, you know, we're trying to understand who these people are and we, you know, quite accurately, we say that they're people who feel as if they've been left behind and they're looking for a new home.But it comes down to this issue of that's the politics of grievance.And at one stage, we have to start talking about the politics of solutions.And we saw that at the last election when the coalition settled on, and I think so did the rest of the country.

The cost of living was the number one issue, and Labor didn't walk with that.Their response was, well, yes.Now, who's got the solutions?And the community judged that the coalition did not.And that's where it comes with, I think that's another problem for One Nation.They'll use all of these cultural issues like, you know, the flag and, you know, patriotism and welcome to country and transgender and whatever, when the really big issues in this country are education, health, transport, you know, those kind of issues.

And so the glare of an election campaign can focus on that and find that they're inadequate.Or they might just hear this cacophony of noise during a campaign, and so I'm sick of a lot of them, and so I'll vote for One Nation.I think it's the responsibility of the major parties to get them focused on the politics of solutions.

But on cost of living on our most recent track for the AFR that was published last weekend, which had One Nation Ahead 31%, we also asked who's the best to manage cost of living, which is a number one, two, or three issue for 76 % of the population.So it's an extraordinary number.And it was, again, basically a statistical tie between the three parties.21 % said the ALP.20 % said One Nation and 19 % said Coalition.So let that wash over you.

The Coalition is coming in third to One Nation.

When One Nation's responsible.just this week, just take this week, they opposed an increase in the minimum wage for the poorest Australians.They opposed the tax cuts.They called them rubbish.Barnaby Joyce called them rubbish on national television.How then can they, the 20 % make, by all means, the 20 % are pissed off about all sorts of things, but to suggest that One Nation is It's the vehicle for the grievance.

But to say that they're the vehicle for solution when they oppose a wage increase for the lowest paid workers is just nonsensical.

At Ripage, we call the One Nation voters, we call them Blue One Nation or Red One Nation.Red being former Labor voters turned One Nation.And COS has made the point a few times, my business partner, that they are very susceptible to messages about Hanson's voting record on wage increases.Sally McManus from the ACTU has done a couple of videos on that.And that does make some of those red One Nation voters pause and hesitate.And that issue this week about the wage rise plays perfectly into that.

So, you know, Labor might recover some of that vote with sort of a lot of repetition of that.But Labor are losing the budget conversation.That was the other finding in our polls was that We ask people, A, how much attention have you paid to it?Around half percent self -reporters having paid a lot of attention or somewhat attention.But when we ask them, is it good for you personally and is it good for the country, around half of all voters said bad for the country, bad for me personally.And what will be worrying Labor strategists is that net minus eight of Gen Z voters said bad for them personally.

So more Gen Z voters said it was bad for them personally, then good for them personally.Now that's, you know, minus eight is contestable.I wouldn't be panicking if I was in Labor headquarters.That means that with a lot more work, you know, we can fix it.And they're certainly doing that at the moment.You can tell they've changed their messaging.

Originally, it was sort of, you know, this is addressing generational inequality, which I didn't think landed as a message.They've now, you know, in the last part of the week, they've been changing to this is leveling the playing field.So what that says to me is they've been doing their research in the field, focus groups, and they're finding these messages weren't landing or persuading voters.But when they're talking about, OK, these new taxes, they're about levelling the playing field.It's probably more persuadable for that cohort.

Yeah.And I think one thing that was overlooked, because there was so much attention on the One Nation increasing their vote this time around, that Labor's vote fell from 31 to 28 % in the primary vote.That's really low for a government.But also, it comes immediately after the budget.Now, I have been saying for decades, there's really no such thing as a budget bounce.And really, you rarely see a government suffer in the polls because of budgets.

They're important in the longer term.Let's face it, they define who you are.But in terms of impacting on the polls, it's very rare.Now you get 3 % slumped.So I can understand them being concerned, but they keep saying they're ready for it.And this is what they wanted to do.

And this is the time in the political cycle to do it.

Yeah.I'm not sure they were ready for it, but to your point, you're absolutely correct.I mean, the two most popular budgets, according to NewsPoll, which has been tracking these things for 40 years, the two most popular budgets were the 1996 one, Costello's very first budget when they came in.They had to make some tough decisions and they didn't back away from that.The second most popular budget was the 2007 federal budget.And we lost government, what, six months later.

So it doesn't always follow that, you know, a bounce or going backwards is a terminal event.

Or that Kevin Rudd's a genius.

Yeah.Yeah.Well, he was ruthlessly on message and he had some very smart people around him, includingthe campaign director, Tim Gartrell, who's now Albanese's chief of staff.So he's no mug.But the other point that I'd make about when they say they were ready for this, I don't think they did the pre -positioning they needed to do.

They'd spent years actually saying there'll be no CGT changes or negative gearing changes, it wasn't necessary.And then suddenly they said, oh, actually it is necessary.And I think that has put them at a big disadvantage to articulate that message.When you think back at the GST reform campaign, how in May 1997, sort of let the cat out of the bag that, you know, there might need to be a consumption tax at some point, which was a deviation from his message before the election where he said, you know...

Yeah, but I would argue that's what the government did when they called that summit and said everything was on the table in August last year.

Yeah, but then that was in May 1997.And then in August 1997, Howard went on Laurie Oakes, the Sunday breakfast show, and announced the great tax reform adventure.And they spent 12 months, almost exactly to the day, 12 months articulating.They had consults, they put out material, articulating the case while the system was broken.And then they said, here's our plan.I think it was August 13.

I remember because I was working for Christopher Pine and that was his birthday.So that sort of ruined his birthday because it's all about Christopher.And then they call the election at the end of the month for October.So that's an example of where they did all the work.And Howard was, I remember this vividly, you know, he told all these members of Parliament, these new members of Parliament, because he had 94 seats as well, he said, you know, some of you won't come back.You know, there will be lost seats.

And it was like, you know, congratulations on winning your marginal seat and coming into Parliament.But, you know, we're promoting you to the front line of Gallipoli.And of course, a lot of them didn't come back.I think we lost about 16, 17 seats.

You know, there's an historical match for that as well, with the Jo for Canberra push, which is kind of like One Nation, except I think One Nation is more sustainable.Jo for Canberra exploded.Jo wasn't even there on the day.But Queensland backbenchers were coming to me and saying, why isn't Bob Hawke doing more?Why isn't he taking on Jo?And the argument coming to me from others was that, no, no, leave him alone.

He's just destroying the coalition, right?So why would you touch him?But these people say, good, fine for you.And you say, yes, but, you know, Labour could end up with a whole lot more seats down south.And you're trying to tell people in Queensland that you're being sacrificed for the good of the party.It's a tough argument to run.

And I think the Liberals are now confused about that as well, about, you know, they allowed the Teals to come in.and then almost gave them the two finger salute.And so they lost that kind of moderate, the centre.And now you've got Tony Abbott saying, I don't want to denigrate Pauline Hanson.Well, they lose the right wing.

That must have been Hawke's favourite year, was it?What was his mood like around the office?

Well, look, there was a little bit of trepidation because on the one hand, you wondered what Could he really succeed?Mosul was persuaded no, no chance, right?It was a Queensland phenomena that would eventually blow up, and it did.But yeah, they were remarkable times, because we'd never seen anything like it.And the reason it doesn't really have a place in history, because nothing came of it.Whereas I think the One Nation rise will certainly, this has been a major transformation.

Yeah, I think there's some serious money behind One Nation.And we've been discussing about this in recent weeks.I'm convinced that One Nation are using a lot of Trump campaign consultants.We know that there's connections there overseas.But there is some really clever digital media stuff happening with some serious weight of message behind it.And of course, the problem these days is it's almost impossible to track.

We all live in our own corner.of the internet, and it's difficult to sort of track what's out there.It's not like the old days where you'd watch the commercial news and you'd see there'd be an ad on, you know, the first window of the news, and then there'd be an ad, you know, on the main movie that night, and it was on page three of the...

Those ads were so important that they used to have They'll get all the media together and show them the latest ad and we'll all get a run.Just Celia McManus, she mentioned before, Ross has sent an email saying he doesn't see this popularity being translated into electoral success.That's One Nation.A week is a long time in politics, two years is an eternity.But he says that because they can get hit from the left and the right, he gave two examples.One was Sully McManus going through One Nation's history of voting against workers' rights, that's one.

And the other was James Patterson on the other side, highlighting Hanson's dreadful record of turning up into the parliament.So that's Ross's view.And then there's another one here from Josh that gives you a sense that not not all those who are disillusioned with the Liberal Party are turning to One Nation, right?They don't know where to go.And Josh talks about the very interesting, he said, position of Noah, the Noah expression we met at the Writers' Festival.He's a disillusioned young person, confused about where to turn.

Josh reminded me that in 2013, I went to De La Salle High School.In Melbourne, it's interesting, my grandson goes there now, but anyway, he asked me who I thought would be the best to lead the Liberal Party at the time, and I said Malcolm Turnbull, and two years after that he became the leader.Now Josh said he believedthat Malcolm Turnbull was stabbed in the back, and in his opinion that's when the modern Liberal Party died, and Angus Taylor's attempt to be one nationite feels like another day of the same shit with a different face, is how he expressed it.But the important thing he says is that many of his friends, and now they're well educated, they're lost politically, socially, and economically.Really, it's an impactful comment.

Yeah.I think back to the first letter, I think Sally McManus' argument, as I said before, we've tested that and there was strong agreement on a national sample basis.The James Patterson line about 88 % not attendance at Senate estimates, I'm not sure that's going to land.That's real Canberra speak.And for a lot of these One Nation voters, their first question would be, What's a Senate Estimates?Most people, when you talk about Senate Estimates and focus groups, the name rings a bell.

But when you say, well, what is Senate Estimates?They've got no idea.And to be honest, Barry, I used to work in the building and I couldn't stand Senate Estimates.You'd always get these phone calls from hysterical senators saying, we need questions, we need questions.And just like, mate, no one's listening.I mean, as you know, some of it gets covered.

For the insiders, it's fascinating.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

There was a lot of good stuff this week.

But I mean, I think Hanson's responsible.Yeah, I'm not turning up to that waste of time.I'm out talking to real people and I think people would go, good, good.So, you know, you've got to show that personal consequence or what is the personal consequence of this?And McManus is doing that.I just think that's insider talk about Senate estimates.

Yeah.Just a couple of things that I want to put to the pollster in you.One is that I think if an election were held today with One Nation on 31 and the government on 28, the government would win, perhaps with a majority, and One Nation would end up with, you know, be about 20 seats short of government.And they would be saying, how does that work?How did we not win when we're more popular than the Labor Party?And what doesn't get through to them is that they've got big numbers, bigger than 30%, into the 40s in some of the regional and rural seats.

more than they need in those places to win seats, but they haven't got the numbers where most of the people live.So it's not an even spread across the board.It doesn't work that way.And trying to explain that to them would be difficult, I think.

Australia is a nation of small and smaller tribes.So I think back to the mid -90s when I was involved and sort of what worked in North Queensland in terms of messaging, where I'm from, sort of landed in Brisbane, worked in Melbourne.There was, you know, in the 2000s, this peculiarity in the seat of Melbourne, with Lindsay Tanner, a great Labor member of Parliament and finance minister.He was the member there.And the Greens used to get into the into the double digits in primary vote, which was considered an oddity, but he used to win comfortably.And then, of course, that seat fell, and then a series of others fell, including in Queensland.

But we're not a nation of, we're a homogenous sort of country anymore where, you know, what works in Queensland works in WA.And that makes it very difficult for parties to appeal to the entire electorate.So they've got a narrow cast.And it's also why we're seeing the rise of the Teals.in those inner suburban seats that have a different value structure than in the outer suburbs.And similarly, again, in the regions.

So, you know, can any party get over 40 % primary again?I'm not convinced about that.I'm more convinced that, you know, we're not going to see the coalition with over 40 % primary or Labor.As to One Nation's future, I mean, they could climb into the 30s, but they could come right back to the package.the teens, I think, as well.

I've got one other question for you as a pollster as well.Do you think the two -party preferred calculation is any longer worth doing?When you consider now how fragmented the political calculus is, that you now have six distinct groups.You have Liberals and Nationals and Labor.You've got the Greens, One Nation and Teals.Is it any longer of any value doing that calculation?

Yeah, no, you're right.It's not a bad diagnostic test, you know, so we can track how things are traveling nationally and so forth.But you're right.These days, you know, you've almost got to look at inner metropolitan suburbs, whether it be Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, so forth, outer suburban, which is a different cohort again, and the regions.And then you've got various differences between the states.

And yet you still have people saying, they look at them, they're given the primary vote and then their question is, yeah, but what does that mean in terms of seats?How do you then explain to them what it means in terms of seats if you don't use the two -party calculation?

Yeah.Yeah.I mean, it's a force of habit.When I used to work for Mark Texter, one of Australia's best campaigners, he would only ask what the primary vote was.So when we got the crosstabs in every second Monday morning, that was his first question, what's the primary vote?Then he'd ask some of the lead indicator numbers.

He rarely asked what the 2PP was, and that was back then when of the 150 House of Reps seats, about 149 or 148 were All right, we'll take a break, but when we come back, we'll talk about AUKUS.

It's become a real flashpoint now.We know that within the Labor Party, caucus for AUKUS, absolutely caucus for AUKUS, but what about the rest of them?

We'll talk about that in a minute.

Okay, well, let's get on to AUKUS now, and there is resistance.There's opposition to AUKUS outside of the Parliamentary Labor Party, no doubt about that.Within the Labor Party, the Parliamentary Party now with Ed Husic speaking out, as he had.but this inquiry now that's going to be headed up by Peter Garrett into Walkers.It's fascinating because it's so unconventional.That's kind of what I like about it.

It's completely unconventional.They're not looking for former judges to start drawing evidence and they go in with an open mind.These guys haven't got an open mind.They're holding this so they can build evidence against it.

Yeah.Obviously, it's a media stunt.It's a social media content proposition.As you say, you know, everybody knows what Peter Garrett's position is.He's been a lifelong opponent of the American alliance, apart from when he was in cabinet, when he was a supportive of the American alliance.

He once led the Nuclear Disarmament Party.Yep.Good on him for that.

Yep.But obviously, you know, his position is well known.The interesting thing to me about it is the Australian Institute is the sponsors of this of this unofficial inquiry.And of course, there were very big movers behind the recent gas debate as well, the export levy.The Australian Institute, of course, has very much a Greens heritage, Greens Party heritage.Its current CEO is a former Green staffer.

Its previous one, Ben Oquis, great guy.He was a former Green staffer and Clive Hamilton, of course, before them, was a former Greens candidate.So they have a very strong Greens legacy.And that's fine.Labor's got think tanks, John Curtin Research Institute and the Menzies Research Center with the little party and so forth.It's absolutely a legitimate process there.

But I would argue that the Greens think tank is now more influential than the Greens parliamentary wing.

Yeah, that's an interesting argument because I think they do have the influence and they've got the intellectual clout.And I think they allow all sorts of ideas to blossom.And this is the problem with what's going on within the Labor Party.And Ed Husic has pointed to it.It's this kind of strict discipline around everything.And my argument around that would be, by all means, apply the discipline around policies.

But first of all, have the debate.Have the debate first and then apply the discipline.They didn't do that this time.There wasn't adequate debate in the caucus and there was certainly no debate in the parliament around something as big as AUKUS.You know, like why is the United States in the UK?Why are they?

This is supposed to be about Asia.Maybe it should be about Southeast Asia.It's about Asia.What's their role in this?The whole thing has become now about the subs, the dud deal that Australia has signed up to.And what I think Peter Garrett and others want to draw attention to is that, look, I rarely ever meet anybody outside of the parliamentary party.

I meet ex -ministers.I meet former party operators.I meet stakeholders down the line.very many at all who support AUKUS.And that's what I think they're trying to expose here, that the party has imposed a discipline on the caucus without having had the debate.And the reason they didn't have the debate in the parliament, of course, and why the media was not interested, is because both of the major parties supported it.

And the media is never interested in an issue if both major parties support it.

Yeah.I think Albanese small target strategy, when he won in 2025, went along with AUKUS.His problem now is, you know, he's been on the record saying he won't touch it.You've only got a certain amount of political capital.He has spent a lot in the last month on the budget, on these new taxes.The biggest risk in politics is when you can finally do something that you've always wanted to do.

And Albanese found himself in that position with 94 seats and effectively controlling the Senate with only needing the Greens.And it reminds me of 2004 when Hatchnot only won the House of Reps, but he actually won a majority in the Senate with ironically it was Barnaby Joyce winning the fourth spot in Queensland.And so he did industrial relations.And it comes back to that argument before we had about pre -positioning for a big change.So the GST, we spoke about that 12 months of work.

Howard didn't do that for the IR.He was just like, oh my God, we've got We've got this control of the Senate.Let's do IR.And it was like I was doing focus groups at the time.It was like a sidewinder missile.Voters were like, hang on a sec.

Why are we doing this?I'm not opposed to it.But I don't understand why we're doing it and how to never explain that.So the question is, Albanese took a 10 point hit to his favorability.He's now net minus 19.That's a bad number.

for scale, Dutton and ScoMo were in the net minus 20s.So he's starting to head into very unpopular territory.And I think if he uses that political capital that he's got left on AUKUS, where does that leave him?

But I think you're right.I think they do have to explain it better than they have to this point.Keep in mind Admiral Chris Barry is a part of this as well.He was a former head of the the Chief of the Defence Forces.And what it will do is force them into a debate.And they're going to have to explain it a little better than they did this week when America changed the rules, right?

And the United States said, well, you were getting one used sub and two used subs, now you're getting three used subs.And the government's reaction to that was, oh, that's a better deal anyway.I mean, imagine that.Anybody who's done a deal with a car yard, right?And I want one used car and two used cars.And they come back and said, look, we're going to give you three used cars.

And you say, oh, that's fine.That's what I want to do.it all along.That may be a simplistic way of putting it, but that's the way people will hear it.Pretty dumb.And they're going to have to do a whole lot better.

And what this will do is shine a light on it.And because it's coming from their own constituency, they're going to be forced to address it.And that's the way it ought to be.Just on tariffs before we finish up.I think this is one gift for Albania, not a great week, because it's so unreasonable on the part of Donald Trump to say, I'm going to link tariffs to slave labour.And where I see it, I'm going to slap tariffs on countries.

And he slapped them on 54 countries, including Australia.It gives him a chance, I think, finally, to have a go at Trump over something.And what did he call it?The ideological, they're on a different planet ideologically or something on trade.But I think it's one small gift.

Yeah.Do you think that's what if Trump turns around and says, okay, 20 % tariffs.I mean, He's not a logical guy, Trump.

No, he's not logical.Look, there is an element of logic behind it.Even if he's not talking about slave labour in Australia, though ironically it's the case of it just before the courts are involving the ISIS brides this week, right on cue, but it's not a systemic problem in Australia, but there is in the supply chain.And because Australia takes goods from countries that do practice slave labor, and are we doing enough about that?And that's where trade can be used as a weapon, but not tariffs.That's the difference.

And people would need to see the distinction between trade as a general issue and imposing tariffs.But surely, that's one that the government can use to their advantage.All right, well, that's where we'll finish up this week.The podcast was made on the sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri people.It was produced by Daniel Simo and Burton Nguyen.The executive producer is Joe Koning.

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