The Chaser Report - Breaking: The Coalition

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Australia's oldest-running political power-couple, the Nationals and Liberals, have officially divorced! Charles reckons there's a long term plan going on behind the scenes, meanwhile Dom tries to figure out what's next for the parties that formerly made up the Coalition.--Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] our caviar addiction: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. When I look up Coalition Brackets Australia in Wikipedia, which I do regularly, I see these words as of today. Charles, the Liberal National Coalition, commonly known simply the Coalition or the LNP, was an alliance of centre-right to. to right-wing political parties

that historically form one of the two major groupings in Australian federal politics. Was Charles, there is no more coalition. And what a better way to introduce the momentous occasion that, you know, it has been 80 years in the making

to talk about the use of grammar in Wikipedia. Yes, but it's one of those things that's really interesting when something ends. Yeah. Some nerd jumps on Wikipedia and just,

oh, we've got to put it in the past tense for that. When someone dies, they, someone jumps on the very moment moment, the news comes out and just goes, was, was, whatever. And so, so this has happened. Some political talk somewhere, not me. Not Dom. Even though he regularly visits the coalition page on Wikipedia.

I like to keep across Australian politics. Yes, so it is no more. We'll talk about why that was. And, Charles, you may have to eat further humble pie about Anthony Albanese, who you wrote off, I think, multiple times, who is now Lazarus with a quadruple bipy. Well, no, I have a whole theory about this. Oh, I was hoping you would. All right, here we go.

So this is an extraordinary moment. Let's just play a little news clip to capture the breaking news that we're just talking about. Well, to Canberra News now and the fallout from the coalition's resounding federal election defeat is continuing with the liberal national partnership coming to an end after almost 80 years. Federal Nationals leader, David Little Proud, has announced his party will sit alone. in the new parliament. Yes. Oh, it was a big day. Did you crack open the champagne

when it happened at about midday? No, of course not. I simply observed a realignment of the forces. But this is enormous, Charles, because do you know how many years in the 124 years of Australian Federation? Labor's been in office out of 12 years? It would be like 12 or something?

It's not much more. It's 40. So they're less than a third. Yeah. The right-wing parties have dominated the whole of Australian political history, basically. Yes. Well, because when you throw up leaders like Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison,

then of course, you deserve to just stay in power for decades at a time. I mean, Mendes counts for a lot of it. Obviously, John Howard is up there as well. And look, the financial review, no less than the very left-leaning financial review in the past couple of days, has said everyone on the right is always asking who's going to be the next John Howard. What if they're looking in the wrong party? Is Anthony Albanese

The new John Howard? Yes, well I think this is exactly what's happened Which is that Albo has pulled the Labor Party So far into the centre-right That he's destroyed He's split the Liberal Party And I think what has actually happened Like I think actually what happened was

Yesterday Albo went and had a private meeting with the Pope Yes, he did And he went Look, back in the 1950s and 60s The Menzies government split the Labour Party in two. Yes. Using the Catholic vote.

Absolutely, with the DLP. Pope, can you do me a favour and make it fair and split the coalition back? So you think he sought the intercession of the Pope with God to make this happen. And then the Pope did a prayer and elbows, you know, prayers were answered. You know, he blessed the Pam's mother's rosary beads. Yeah, did the Pope. So there you go. Not bad for a boy from a housing estate.

Camberdown as I'm sure he was thinking. But I mean, Alba's might as well be Scott Morrison. Like he's going on about his religion and where he's a religion and religion and everything. It's not something I've heard a lot about from Albanesey in the past. Don't get me wrong. I actually, to be quite sincere, I actually think it's such a better place for Albert. Like, I find the way he talks about his mum all the time now and he keeps on crying in public and stuff because he was crying in front of the Pope, you know, a couple of days ago.

Pope would have would have liked that. See, if J.D. Vance had cried in front of the Pope, he mightn't have got shoved away. Did you see that footage? But the elbow, yes, I did. That was amazing. But the elbow that I think everyone in the ALP has known for like 50 years is one who's incredibly angry. It yells at you all the time. But we all know from Psychology 101 that anger is just something you do when you're actually deeply sad, but you don't want to express your sadness.

And it's like a cap on sadness It's a way to sort of channel deep sadness And I think with Albo actually Allowing himself to express his pure emotions A little bit more in public He probably won't be as angry all the time I mean Charles this is the man who publicly cried Over Kevin Rudd

The most I mean The most implausible reason to burst into tears Because of how badly right And this was years later too Yeah Yeah So I don't know In touch with his...

Tearful elbow is back. All right, so we should just... And Bob Hawke cried all the time. He cried constantly. And he did plenty of things that would inspire tears. Look, we should just recap what actually happened. So, Susan Lee's currently at home, I think, in Aubrey. Yep.

Her mother's just passed away, so it's been a very rough couple of days for her. And David Little Proud, the National's Leader, went down to visit her. Because every time there's a new leader of the Liberal Party, there needs to be a new coalition agreement. So this is what happened to Malcolm. Turnbull, do you remember? Yes. When he got rid of Tony Abbott, he had to negotiate a new coalition agreement with Barnaby

Joyce. Yes. And that's when essentially Malcolm Turnbull's entire prime ministership got hamstrung because he had to give away all these issues he would have liked to do. Yes. So they've had this meeting. You can be prime minister as long as you don't get to do anything. As long as you don't do anything, you know, same-sex marriage or carbon stuff or any of the

stuff that Turnbull would have liked to have done. I imagine if you read his autobiography, that's what he says. So why did Albo not do anything when he became prime minister? Oh. Okay. I think, didn't he sign a coalition agreement with Richard Marles? Between his principles and his sense of rail politics.

Yes, of course. So they had this negotiation and they've had a major falling out over policy. I mean, it takes a pretty amazing amount of Hutzpah for a new Nationals leader to turn up as Susan Lee is mourning her mother and go, no. And go, perfect opportunity. No deal. Yeah. No deal. We're out.

Let's kick her while which she's down. Let's just, let's just, you know, when she's distracted. We're just going to completely upend. I think it's, what is, since about 1980? It was since the days of Sajobi O'Kepiderson the last time the coalition had a split. It's a bit awkward for the Queenslanders because they're still the LNP one party. But, yeah, little proud of just walked away. That's sort of embarrassing, isn't it?

Yeah, it's like having a double-barrowed name with your ex. Because the whole reason they got hitched up in Queensland was, first of all, the Liberal Party became so small. Yes. It was a rounding error. But also, it was, like... To count as an actual official opposition at one point. Yeah, they have to combine.

I think that's right. It was to count as an opposition, but it was also, because historically, they've hated each other so much that they sort of felt the need to more formalise it than anywhere else in Australia. And now, it's the stupid couple who accidentally, like, who weren't even in love, who got married,

who are now still hitched. Well, the Queensland, of course, was the one state where the nationals had more numbers historically than the Liberals. But now, in federal parliament, we had a look at the numbers. I haven't seen how it's changed. But I send you remember the LNP and the Liberals and the Nationals all have about the same number of seats. But the point is, the nationals have kept their seats pretty much. Yes. And the liberals have absolutely hemorrhaged.

Yes. So the, a little bit like Richard Miles going, we did better than expected in Victoria, let's renegotiate things. Yes. The nationals have kind of gone. Well, you know, we're holding up our end of the deal, but we're going to get tough with you. But I think Little Proud has actually done Susan Lee a favour, and the Liberals are favour, because it sort of cleared the decks to allow the Liberal Party to do what they do best, which is sue each other.

So, you know, they don't have to worry about, oh, there's these other votes that we've got to worry about the National Party. So you think they can focus really on infighting within the Liberals? Yes. Instead of with the National. Because the Victorian Liberal Party, I mean, they just, Every day there's another lawsuit where, I mean, have you seen what happened to John Pursudo? He's going to go bankrupt. No.

So this is the most extraordinary thing. So a couple of years ago, one of his ministers turned up to an anti-trans rally, which happened, unfortunately, to also be attended by neo-Nazis, who sort of wanted to, I think, hijack that issue for their own horrible cause. and John Pursudo then throughout this woman out of the Liberal Party entirely because of that she then sued and won $300,000 in damages for doing it my goodness so this is more redeeming yeah more redeeming but the whole thing is that the legal bills which he's got to pay $2.3 million dollars $2.3 million and I'm looking at this and

someone put together a fake go-fund me as if things weren't getting bad enough for Pizzuto people put together a fake GoFundMe So all the people who thought they're helping him Were in fact getting I don't know whether they're getting ripped off Or what's going on But it certainly wasn't going to Pizzuto By sounds of things

The Chaser Report More news Less often Right and so just to be clear Charles Because we can't afford it You're not saying more redeeming Is a member of that neo-Nazi group Are you? Because that would be

No no and the way I said it. Yeah. So there were other non-specified neo-Nazes. Other neo-Nazis who were completely unrelated to that anti-trans rally wanted to attach themselves to the anti-trans movement. It's very awkward when there are multiple rallies going on at the same time. It's really, you've got to keep your labels fluid.

A completely entirely different horrible cause. Amazing. We make that very clear. Very different hateful cause. Excellent legal thoroughness. So we're going, so Susan Lee's come in and the big question is, what is she going to sue first? What are they going to do for me? And this is the thing that's so fascinating after a loss like this,

when all the kind of bloodletting happens. And they had the big investigation into the 2022 loss. I think Jane Hume was one of those. The senator wrote the report and so on. Peter Dutton, it would be fair to say, did not act on the findings of that report, which would try and win back the teal voters. And they didn't do that.

And so the question is, where does the Liberal Party? Well, the first question was, where does the coalition go from here? And it comes down to the nuclear debate, Charles, as I understand it because this is... Well, they were into splitting atoms and instead they've split themselves.

Boom! So this is the strange thing is that they've taken... It seems as though the nationals have taken from this loss that in fact the nuclear policy is worth doubling down on that it's an absolute vote winner

to the future. Who has taken that as the lesson? Aren't the nationals... Oh yeah, they are. The nationals, little proud and co. Are wanting to stick with the nuclear policy. Yes. And I think that is

Because my guess, I base this on no facts. Have a speculate. But my speculation is that they are making good money from donations out of fossil fuel interests that have a direct interest in nuclear. We've got to remember that when we're saying nuclear, it's actually shorthand for nuclear after, you know, at an unspecified time in the future. And in the meantime, we keep fossil fuels.

Yes. Because you're kind of going, well, wouldn't the Nationals electorates be the places where a lot of these things were built, and they may well be. Yes, but the nationals love selling out their own electric. Like, you've got to remember, they are, they cosplay as a farmer's party, but they're actually a miners party. Oh. That's the whole trick to understanding the coalition. Well, your friend.

Not the coalition, sorry, the National Party. Your friend, your friend from the shovel, James Schleffel. Oh, right. Says his headline is Liberals Nationals fight over who gets to keep Gina Reinhardt. So it's the custody dispute, essentially, going on. Well, yeah, it's the nationals wanting the coal in the coalition. Oh, gosh. Okay, so, yeah, who gets to bring the lump-to-coals into Parliament from here?

So, I mean, if you're Susan Lee, bearing in mind she's probably not really focused on this, what do you do? I mean, do you try and fix things up? But clearly, a little proud and made an offer she couldn't accept. I would have thought, like, I mean, I know that this won't happen, but doesn't this actually free up both sides to just appeal more to their base? Like, what I've never understood is why after every election loss, the coalition doesn't split up for a while and just work on their brand.

Like, you just go, okay, the libs, like, the cynic in me goes, there should have been a real politic conversation in Aubrey, where David Littleproud goes, okay, let's orchestrate a breakup. I'll work on getting, you know, the fossil fuel interests to fund my crackpot idea of running fossil fuels for the rest of humanity. And then Susan Lee, you can go off and appeal like you're some sort of teal style, you know, left liberal. That would make sense, right? We talked about this before, Charles, the notion that actually, I don't believe this is true because I suspect that people in Labor actually hate the Greens more than anybody else.

But we've discussed before whether or not, in fact, the Greens and Labor benefited from having this sort of tension between them where they vote for the same stuff. Like clearly, because the Greens will help Labor get things through the Senate. But it actually works for them. Works for the sort of inner city lefties to go, ugh, labor, let's vote for Greens. And for Labor to be more mainstream and centrist and go, well, we wouldn't go as far as the Greens, maybe that's where the nationals and the liberals are going. And in a world where there's a sort of long-term decline in the two-party preferred vote. Yeah, that's true.

You know, actually having a sort of fragmented party system. Looser coalitions. Sort of makes more sense because everyone can appeal to their base. And if the Teals are sticking around too, that actually makes sense too because they haven't yet been a major force. But if you assume they're going to continue many of them for years to come, they will probably have the balance of power at some point. And you can absolutely imagine people like Allegra Spender and Zoe Daniel and Monique Ryan

and all of them, Zali Stegel, siding with a liberal coalition, sorry, not coalition, a liberal party. To deliver them the balance of power. And Susan Lee's a moderate. If you had a tax deal that reduced income taxes for rich people but was also a bit climate friendly and stuff like that. Like that's totally teal. Like it's just, you could see that happening.

Yeah. And so maybe what happens from here is the Liberal Party actually becomes more teal. Yeah. And the nets keep netting. That's the sensible thing that would happen. Oh, but you think instead there'll just be lawsuits. But don't you think, well, this is the funny. Anything. So all the sort of final Senate results are coming in and, you know, it looks like Bradfield's been lost by the Libs.

Yeah, yeah. Nicolette Bowler seems likely to get that one. I think Zoe Daniel is out. Yeah, Zoe Daniels out. But what that means is there was speculation this morning, which is Tuesday morning, that actually the loss of senators by the Liberal Party and the specific senators who they've lost and whose terms are just ending, has meant that Angus Taylor, probably if they held a vote on the 1st of July when the new parliament comes in, the new Senate comes in, would have the numbers over Susan Lee. Oh, awkward. So, I mean, who knows what happens? Like, it may just be that Susan Lee can run with an iron fist and gain enough popularity that she's sort of unassailable.

Or there's the sort of thing of some interneissine warfare. She has to appeal to the right. She can't do the flank to the left that she wants. And because she's already talking, I mean, certainly her statements as leader have been very much about we've got to appeal to everybody and sort of broaden the base. Like taking the loss, particularly the loss to the teals, because I mean, this is a thing that's not talked about. Yes, they lost to labour, but they've lost so many seats to the teals and they're not coming back. I mean, several of the teals increased their majority. Yeah.

So who are they for? If they can't win inner city rich electorates, and these are the electorates from which most of their leaders in recent times have come in places like, Wentworth, Bradfield, Benelong, of course, John Howard's old seat. I mean, if these seats are not going for the Libels and they can't win in the country, what is their base? And ironically as well, yeah, a lot of the moderates have been perched in recent years. So the people who would naturally want to go into the centre, there's not that many of them in the party anymore.

I mean, if you think of the moderate to the sort of Turnbull era, a lot of them have gone. I think, yeah, because, I mean, my assumption was a sort of anti-union but pro-climate change, like pro-action on climate change, low tax, sort of, so fiscally conservative, socially liberal, would be the way to do it. But that's basically the Labor Party, isn't it? But this is a really interesting thing, is that if you ignore parties for a moment, and you try to come up with the policies that the average Australian would actually like, No party's platform actually appeals to just most Australians and what they want.

That's one of the weird things about the party system. And clearly Albo's labour is moving in that direction of trying to give people exactly what you say. You know, socially a bit progressive, welfare state that looks after people, but, you know, not massively green, just sort of sitting in the centre. That's where Albo is going because he wants to become the natural party of government, as he keeps saying. but actually it sort of is the libs that's what they have been in the past and certainly the moderate libs and they're almost extinct now

but maybe the point is the Australians are quite conservative is my point the problem is that I'm not sure it's convincing for the Liberal Party to go to the next election saying actually we're basically the Labor Party no because they don't have incumbency and their numbers are tiny yeah and it's not plausible as well it's like and also then there's no point of difference

Well, unless... There has to be a point of difference. And I'm thinking, maybe racism. Maybe if they just... Well, but that's what... Because that's always very popular. Like, I would say, you know, the average Australian. But it didn't work.

I mean, this is the whole... There were all the stuff about immigration. What about the voice? But the voice was... The voice was... The voice was... The voice was as much than the voice. But the voice was as much...

Say all the things that we thought. But the voice was also about a lack of clarity about what it was. I mean, the voice was... had more to it than. just race and Petit Dutton very clearly. It was a good coalition between racists and

people who didn't understand what it was in. They're disengaged. Yeah. But I mean the thing is with Petit Dutton did dog whistle on race a number of times in this election and it went absolutely nowhere.

Partly because Albo then never never gave it any strength. We just played a dead bat. I mean if they want a culture war it's got to be one that actually people really care about it. Yes. So what's a good cultural?

See, I think we need to be thinking outside the box here. We need a new one. No, we need a new one. That's the thing. There needs to be a new cultural. This is my whole point. There's not, I mean, Peter Dutton tried to bring out the old ones. Yes.

And they didn't really work. They've lost their potency. So what's a new one. Yes, we need a new one. Okay. Well, if you look at what the US is doing, what about the threat from medical science? You know, there's been a huge swing against medical science. You could, I can imagine the liberal party.

You know, vaccine numbers are down in Australia quite sharply. since COVID. If you're looking at, you know, the trends, you'd go, well, that's, that's a trend that they could tap into it. Yeah, we're below herd immunity for measles. So the pro-measles line, you know, let people get measles again, yeah, make measles great again. In Australia, yeah. I think, I think, you know, well, this numbers are still very high, but I was looking

at this the other day, you need about 95% immunity for herd immunity or for measles. Because on some people, the measles vaccine does not work. And I think we were down to 91% in some. population, possibly for kids. I can't remember the numbers, but it was certainly we were getting below herd immunity there. And I was talking to somebody the other day who doesn't have immunity to measles, even though she tried to get the vaccine, but it just some work on her. And she was saying, thank God that everyone else gets the vaccine.

Well, you should probably mention to her not to go to Byron. Oh, no. Oh. So, okay. So that's one possibility. So can I say what I think actually is going on? What? I think David Little Proud is actually a very shrewd politician.

Like, I don't like him, but he's very effective communicator, right? And I think he can read the wind quite well. And he knows that Susan Lee is not going to be the opposition leader shortly before the next election. So he knows that it's a waste of time. On average, that's a safe bet, right? I mean, Peter Dutton was the exception. He managed to hold the team together. Yeah.

But generally, the first opposition leader, as we've said, after a... Susan Lee is the Brendan Nelson of... Well, Penn, it was a slow burn, Brendan Nelson. But, yeah, look, it's... I mean, that makes Susan Lee and Malcolm Turnbull the first time, doesn't it? So that doesn't work out either. So the point is that he doesn't want to bother putting together a coalition agreement because there's just extra work.

He's going to negotiate with Angus Taylor in about a month's time. No, no, in about... I reckon in two years' time. Oh, you think? You think they'll take that long? I reckon, no, no, I think they'll take two years time because Angus Taylor will just be sitting on the numbers and going, I'll wait until she's completely in trouble.

And also I get my honeymoon if I'm just one year before the election. Oh, but also gives him... And they don't get to know too much about me. It gives him several years where everyone sort of forgets that he was the shadow treasurer in the peted up. Oh, yes, yes. Filed experiment. And also all the water stuff. It can just chill.

And that document, remember the forged document, the city of Sydney Council? I mean, my favorite thing was... That was the most embarrassing. The tweet, remember the tweet? Oh, the Facebook post. Well done, Angus, good job. Oh, we've got to get him in. Does he get another...

Does his Facebook page get a second vote in the leadership ballot? This is right, it's well done, Angus, good job on the... For the people who don't know that, he logged into Facebook and posted something about Angus Taylor. What a great job Angus was doing. And then... And then underneath, he obviously was trying to post to somebody else, like, with... one of his alter counts, but instead it just came up Angus Taylor MP. Well done, Angus.

Good job. Good job. Good job not being opposition leader is what you're saying, Charles. So look, it's a momentous day in Australian politics. The coalition, the most successful political force of our lifetimes, is no more, Charles. Yeah. I know you're shedding a tear for what was. Yes.

Have we saved the coalition? I think we've given them a new direction. They might want to try. If they need any more tips, they should just email us at podcast, at chaser.com today, you're and I'm happy to steer them in the direction. I think against medical science, that's my call. RFK, all the way with RFK Jr.

There you go. We're part of the Iconicless network. Catch you tomorrow.