The Chaser Report - The Human Centipede of Political Policy

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

In this episode, Charles shares all his insider knowledge about what's happening behind the scenes in the Labor Party. Will Albo get knifed before the election, and by who? Meanwhile, Dom takes a look at the polls and tries to determine what type of landslide we should expect. Watch OPTICS on ABC iview here:https://iview.abc.net.au/show/opticsCheck out more Chaser headlines here:https://www.instagram.com/chaserwar/?hl=enClick here to claim bulk billing on your life-saving medication:https://chaser.com.au/support/ 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 Chase Report with Dom and Charles. Now, Charles, when is a glass 45% full? And when is a glass 55% empty? This is the question facing the Prime Minister based on the Resolve poll that's out this week. So it resolves the Herald one, isn't it? I think it's the Herald one, yes.

And basically what they've done is they've done an opinion poll, noting that the only poll that matters, Charles, is the one on election day. That's what they always say. But if this one mattered, it would say that there's a 55-45 split in favour of the coalition at this point. Now, Labour in the past, Charles, would have dumped several prime ministers by this point in the polls. I think they start to get antsyed about 51% to the coalition. Even if the prime minister is quite popular, they dump them. In fact, the worst number for Anthony Amnesi on this, on this.

in this article from David Crow is that 59% of voters say that even though the Reserve Bank has cut interest rates, that won't change their vote. So an incredibly slight drop. It's almost like having spent two and a half years saying that the interest rate decision was out of their hands, it was actually a decision for the Reserve Bank. The voters then came to the conclusion that Labor was not responsible for the decision that was out of their hands. And is it just possible, Charles, that I mean,

I'm sure that this interest rate cut means, you know, some families are going to save a couple hundred bucks a month. But that basically won't cover the cost of coffee in 2025. Let's talk more about these numbers after this. So the election campaign seems extremely underway. There's lots of people out there on the hustings already. So I just want to run through some of the numbers, though, just drill down on them. Because I've seen a lot of... Let's look at these numbers, yeah.

A lot of commentary online from Labor-leaning people saying, Oh, you can't trust that. Resolve always skews in favour of the coalition, right? It's just the conspiracy theory where Peter Costello ran Fairfax, which he doesn't anymore. He's the chair of Fairfax. Yeah, and just the general sort of like apologism for Albo that, you know, that continues for no particular reason.

But there is what, there's a few pollsters and sort of like armchair pollsters who I follow online who sort of have the, way of adjusting for perceived bias, right? So it is true that in the last resolved poll, they did overestimate the coalition's vote on an election date. Right. So if you look at the last published poll and then you adjust it according to how much under or over they were, you know, you can come up with, you know,

a sort of weight-adjusted sort of... Yeah, it's also possible that their survey included in S-Morrison of the Shire. Yeah. Back then, who knows. Anyway, point is. By the adjusted figures, it would only be 5347, so the coalition would only win in a landslide rather than totally, you know, pick up almost every seat. Yeah, I think there are some bad figures for Albo, right?

And it's been trending down, and the whole thing about, it's not about one poll. It's about a trend, right? Yeah. And it's been trending down now for two years. So it's sort of like, you know, maybe there's something in the numbers, right? But my question to you, Dom, is what do you do if you're the Labor Party and you're in electoral trouble? Besides, if you can't swap the leader, what is the other thing you do? What's the one policy you can always announce?

Well, it's worth, before we go to it, it's worth remembering why they can't change the Prime Minister, which is because when Kevin Rudd returned briefly as PM after Julia Gillard, if you finally managed to get rid of Julia Gillard, he put in new rules for the leader. He didn't put in new rules. He put in the new rules. It was a guy called Anthony Albanese. Really? Who was the leader of the house at the time?

I thought you were leading up to this. No, it wasn't. But it was the Kevin Rudd Memorial change. Was it really Albo that put those rules? It was Albo who spearheaded those changes. So it could never happen again. Because remember Albo cried when they knifed Julia, when they knifed Kevin Rudd and put in Julia. Kevin Rudd cried and he went, it's not because I have any great affection for Rudd.

it's because you don't do that to a first-term Prime Minister. To a mate, yeah. No, so I can't remember exactly how the rule works. The Albo rule suddenly, for some reason, seems to now advantage, oh, one Anthony Albanese. So the rules were changed by Rudd. I'm just looking at the parliamentary library. But I'm sure Albo did the numbers.

Internally, Albo spearheaded it, and he basically put it all together because he was the leader at the house. So Rudd's proposal was you've got to get 75% of the caucus to get rid of a city PM. And they watered it down to, I think, 60. So you do know, though, that those rules can be rewritten by a majority vote of the caucus. Hang, I've got that totally wrong. So it is 75% for a sitting prime minister, and it's 60% for an opposition leader. But, yes, this is only a rule of the caucus.

So presumably, 51% of the caucus can, what, change the rules, can they? That's right. They can vote to change the rule. It's just like an extra bit of admin that you've got to do. Yeah, that's not in the party platform. It's just a caucus rule. Yeah. Okay, interesting.

So, but the point is that they've sort of, they've gone, no, no, no, we've changed. And also, everyone's too scared of Albo to, because he just yells at everyone the whole time, is what I've heard. What would you? I mean, but he seems so so peaceful and mild. Like, a lot of people are saying they don't see enough passion from Albanese. This is one of the things people are saying. Yeah. Public persona is, um, is, he's not an attack dog the one used to be in the parliament as prime minister.

He just did the fluffy interview with Jody for the Women's Weekly, which I was just reading earlier. Yes. Apparently they both have, you know, both of them had strong female figures in their life growing up, and they both loved the rabbit eyes. Yes, and they both love love love. They love love love love living at the lodge, it seems as well, which is understandable. But no, okay, so they can't get rid of Albo now.

And even so, who would they replace him with? I mean, I can't have to. Who's the Deputy Prime Minister again? Richard Miles. No, no, but the, you know, the, you know, the, Victorian ALP have now split. Have they? Yes.

Oh, that's what you're letting up to. Labor splits. They'll have another DLP. That worked so well. No, no. So Albo's been going around and appointing his own people in pre-selection matters, mainly to shore up his votes after the election. Because, you know, if you think it's hard for a Labour Prime Minister to stay in power,

think how hard it is for a Labour opposition leader to stay in power. And I think that that's what's on Albo's mind of the moment. So is this something that's actually happening or is this one of your... No, no, this is absolutely true. And what has happened is that has sort of split the Victorian Labor Party in two because they're all squabbling over these terrible pre-selection medals. So there's no genuine... So there's no genuine opponent at the moment.

There's no one sitting... No, no. So there's problems... So there's Jim Char... There's three candidates, right? There's Richard Miles, Jim Chalmers and Tony Burke. See, because the ALP is the diverse party that has not just white men. We'll just note that Charles has deep labour connections that I don't have.

And I'm not a sceptical of, but I have nothing to challenge you. So I'm sure if we asked Tanya Plybosex, she would say she's also a very prominent figure. But do you think after all these years of approving minds... Well, I think the whole thing is that her strategy, was to stay a clean skin, but she accidentally kept on tripping over and signing mine approvals. So she sort of hasn't kept her hands clean, even though she's got no taste for... I don't think she'd love the job in the environment, is she?

All right, so... But I think she's just sticking... To be honest, at this point, I think Tanya's just sticking around to watch Albo flame out. To be... She just wants front rows seats. The one after the one. Like, it's always... I mean, peter up into the first opposition leader, you know,

first post-defeat opposition leader who's had any chance of winning the following election. Yeah, and I think you've got to, you've got to bet that Peter Dutton will also be as, I mean, Peter Dutton, I don't know whether you listen to the episode that we did at the end of last week, but I would be surprised if he became one of the great prime ministers. There's every chance that Labor could, it could be, you know, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth for the foreseeable future. But if we just get into viable next leaders, Jim Chalmers, I don't think, is going to make it

because he is a Queenslander, right? Tell me if this is too boring. Charles, when we started talking about internal Labour Party politics when it became too boring. We're a long way past that. Let's just make sure no one's listening by taking some ads, don't we? The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. So the point is, Jim Char, like,

How many Labor MPs are there from Queensland? Because the Greens won the more, remember? That's right. That's right. There's probably like Jim Chalmers and that's it. And you really do require the full support of your state in the ALP to have any chances of a federal sort of thing. So if you only got, if you only arriving at a leadership battle with one vote from your state. There may be a second, Queensland. Labor MP, we have to fact check it.

But the point is that a far more likely scenario, bizarrely is that someone like Tony Burke comes in through the middle. Richard Miles calls the spill. Jim Chalmers runs, but then Tony Burke, who I don't think anyone would know about, really. Like, he's sort of, I mean, he did a good job as HR minister, but or whatever. Well, he's a home affairs minister now. He's pretty prominent. If you believe what Peter Dutton said last week, he's been holding all these citizenship ceremonies

to try and get new voters into marginal seats so they can support Labor. Is that what they're doing? That's what Peter Dutton's accused him of doing. Tony Burke denies this and says that a citizenship ceremony at any time is a good thing. There have been quite a lot of them. That's great. Organised by the Federal Department in recent weeks. So that's interesting one.

That's great. You'll really know that the scam is on if all of the new citizens suddenly start joining the Labor branches, I suppose. That would be the test of. Well, Tony Burke was a staffer of Graham Richardson back in the day. Was he? Yeah, yeah. Early on in his career. He learned from, you know...

I think they're probably wedded to Albo for this election. So then what's the policy that you launch, if you're the Labor Party? What's the same policy that you've promised ever since 2016? And you've never done, but you... Oh, I know where this is going. Fixing Medicare. Yeah, you fix bulk billing. That's what they...

I don't know whether you remember the last election. I do. I remember the text messages that went out warning about... On the... Yeah, they do Mediscare, right? The coalition's going to destroy... care, but then they also go and we're going to fix bulk billing.

But they said that last time. They said that last time. It's like, wait a new. Shouldn't you be announcing we have fixed bulk billing? Not, oh, it's going to be fixed later this year. But Charles, it's been hard. It's only had three years. But what have they been doing?

They didn't, what have they been doing? Oh, they've been fixing the housing crisis, have they? Did they fix that? It's really hard. How does take time to build? What have they done? What have they done? They lost a referendum.

They paid, um, 800 million to the US the other day. They lost the referendum. That's one thing that they've done. Yeah, yeah. So they, I don't know if they've delivered the referendum part of the promise. So, yeah, okay, so you say, what you do is you say, and this is, we've heard it from, I think, every candidate for Labor, Labor put up for Prime Minister, Medicare is in Labor's DNA. Yeah.

And what would you do, though, Charles? If you come up with all these bulk billing reforms and we're going to invest in, you know, making bulk billing cheaper. because over the past three years it has become more expensive to see a GP over the last 10 years It's not Labor particularly It's changed a lot Over the past 10 years

And this is where you go The messaging from Labor has been so shit Right around this exact issue right Which is So what happened was since about 2013 bulk billing's been getting worse And worse and worse Which is sort of a bit weird

Right Because you would expect That the party That all doctors vote for Is the Liberal Party And yet, it's been the Liberal Party who's been underpaying the doctors. They've been skimping on Medicare and sort of going, oh, wow, we've got this saving in the budget. It's not a real saving because it makes a key piece of our social infrastructure unsustainable.

Like, they've just completely skimped. But also. And so the messaging from the Labor Party should be the whole point is the Libs just skimp on everything and they just have these fake savings. But instead, it's smart budget. Management, excuse me, when you don't go to the GP, you go to the emergency room in the middle of the night. Yes. And that, admittedly, is far more expensive as a way of... But that's the states who pay for the emergency rooms at hospitals.

So, okay, so Charles, you're Anthony Almanesee. Medicare's in your DNA, along with Souths, because you're Labor. You announce an $8.5 billion commitment to bulk billing. And the stage is set for your big... election pitch. It's going to be the Medicare election and you're going to grind the coalition into the ground. And it's a brilliant strategy. They can't. They won't see it coming. So what would happen then if unexpectedly Peter Dutton immediately said, cool, we'll do the same thing. Yeah. What would you do then? Well, what you do is you accuse the libs of stealing Labor strategy of stealing

all the other policies from the other side. So the problem is we've now reached the, it's, It's like a human centipede of political policy in Australia. That is the sort of quality political analysis you get from this podcast. But it is. Like, because they're now just both stealing from each other in this sort of reflexive, infinite loop. But that'll be nice. Well, I get a government of national unity. Oh, yeah.

Won't that be great? Anthony Albanesee and Peter Dutton will get in a room. Yes. Sing a bit of kumbaya with Scott Morrison playing the ukulele. Yeah. And they'll just all agree on excellent policies that'll fix everything. Because if there's one thing we know Australian governments like to do, it's massive brave reforms that just fix everything so there's nothing left to worry about.

And that's what we can expect, isn't it? You don't look convinced. I think I think I'm going to have to move somewhere else, but I'm trying to think of a country that isn't shit at the moment. Well, this is the great. I'm going to move to America, no. Are I going to move to Germany? No.

Britain? Forget that. How's New Zealand looking? Still pretty earthquakey. This is, what if this is as good as it gets? So this is, this is like the best. This is, it's all downhill from here. And I think, Charles, the real lesson in all of this is that if, you know, if things aren't looking so good, just buy a very expensive property on the Central Coast.

Yes. So that if things turn sour for you and if Peter Dutton matches your big policy initiative to win the election, at least you've got a nice place to retire to. We're part of the Aconiclass Network. Catch you tomorrow live from Kirby Cabana.