Paul Murray Live | 12 October

0:02Speaker 1:This is Paul Murray Live.

0:06Speaker 2:Good evening. Welcome to the Man Cave. Caleb Bond in for Paul this week. Here's what's coming up tonight. You just saw Josh Frydenberg's interview with Shari. He's flirting with a return to politics. But what does the future of the Coalition actually look like with One Nation on the scene? More on that soon. Matt Canavan and Christy McSweeney are on the panel tonight. The Bondi Royal Commission will now have extra hearings. behind closed doors. I can't help feeling this whole thing has been rushed. We'll talk about that.

0:34Speaker 2:And Jacinta Nampajupa-Price wants child protection under Commonwealth control. After all these awful stories we've been reading about the treatment of Indigenous kids in Western Australia. She'll be with me later in the program. Now, two interesting stories in conservative politics today, with two party leaders considering switching to the lower house. Nationals leader Matt Canavan, he'll be with me on the show a little bit later, has confirmed that he's considering a move to the lower house if that would mean that the Nationals were likely to win an extra seat in the lower house. Now, of course, that's important because the Nationals are very clearly under threat from One Nation. In fact, they're probably more under threat from One Nation than even the Liberal Party is. So they need to do everything that they can to give themselves a chance of winning seats. And, of course, governments are made and formed in the lower house, so every extra seat that can be held by a conservative party is a good thing. And I have no doubt that Matt Canavan and the Nationals want to be part of that mix if there's the potential for a right-of-centre government to

1:41Speaker 2:be formed at the next federal election. And we don't know what that might look like. Of course, it could be a coalition between One Nation and the Liberals and the Nationals. Could be a coalition between One Nation and the Liberals if the Nationals were to be completely wiped out. The composition of that and who is in charge would obviously be determined by who won the most seats. It's a lot of speculation. Who knows what could happen between now and the next federal election, which is set to be in mid-2028. But the Nationals want to be part of that mix, and so they should. And if Matt Canavan thinks he can do it, then I think he should.

2:20Speaker 2:But one of the seats he's flagged as potentially running in is Capricornia. Now, that includes Rockhampton. It also includes Yippoon, which is where Matt Canavan lives. So, naturally, it would make sense that if the sitting MP, Michelle Landry, were to retire, that he might run there.

2:38Speaker 3:If it is required to keep a seat, to hold one more seat in the lower house somewhere, I will do it. I'll do what I need to save this country. Obviously, as I said, this could be my last election. I have no illusions about that. But that's OK. I want to make sure I'm putting it all on the line. I'm not going to die wondering.

3:01Speaker 2:Something else to add to the mix, though, because Andrew Clunell broke here on the channel this afternoon that Pauline Hanson owns a property in the electorate of Capricornia and is considering building a house which could open the door for her having a lower house run as well.

3:17Speaker 4:Pauline Hanson is keeping her options open to running downstairs.

3:21Speaker 5:She's bought property in the seat of Capricornia and might build on it.

3:25Speaker 2:Now, of course, it's unlikely there will ever be a circumstance where the Nationals are running the government and have a Prime Minister. So the equation for the Nationals in terms of trying to win seats in the lower house is very different. For Matt Canavan, it's simply about maximising the number of Nats in the lower house being part of the mix. But for One Nation, it's a different kettle of fish. Because if Pauline Hanson thinks there's a chance that she could end up being Prime Minister, whether that's in a majority or minority government, far more likely a minority government, then, of course, the convention is that the Prime Minister is in the lower house. Now, One Nation has insisted that Pauline Hanson could govern from the Senate.

4:09Speaker 2:But the only time we've ever had a senator as Prime Minister was John Gorton... when he became Prime Minister in 1968 after Harold Holt disappeared. But that was only for a short period of time because he then resigned from the Senate and ran in the seat of Higgins in Victoria in a by-election. So he then went on to serve as Prime Minister in the lower house. But this is what One Nation and Pauline Hanson will be considering. Does she make a run for the lower house? in a seat that they're confident they can win to maximise her chances of becoming Prime Minister. So now you have Matt Canavan and Pauline Hanson thinking about potentially running in the same seat. I think it would be pretty plainly fundamentally stupid if they both ran in the same seat because of course one of them would have to lose and that would mean one of them disappears from the Parliament and from conservative politics. They're both good candidates. And I understand that One Nation may feel at the moment that it has the upper hand and that it deserves to have that upper hand and that to some degree what One Nation is doing is punishing the Liberal and

5:19Speaker 2:National parties for not following Australians where they want to go. And so Pauline Hanson could potentially say, well, who cares if I knock off Matt Canavan? It's not my job to protect Matt Canavan or the Nationals Party. I'm here to win seats for One Nation. And to some degree that is true. But I think they have to be more strategic than that. It would be a real shame to see a high-profile conservative voice excluded from the parliament, a well-qualified conservative voice excluded from the parliament, because two parties were too pig-headed to think about the greater good rather than themselves. I think the parliament would be poorer without Pauline Hanson and it would also be poorer without Matt Canavan in it. And, of course, every party, or in the case of the Liberal and National parties, a long-standing unified coalition, they have to run to govern in their own right. I mean, you can't really have One Nation or the coalition going out before a federal election and saying, we want to do a deal. We want to do a deal to form a minority government. The aim of the game is, and has to be, to

6:29Speaker 2:win in a majority. But that certainly doesn't mean that you exclude the idea... And you also have to be realistic about what a conservative government, the next conservative government in this country, might look like. And in all likelihood, it's going to be some kind of amalgamation of the Liberal Party and the National Party and One Nation. And again, I know they'd all love to be able to govern in their own right, but I'm just saying we have to be realistic about what it might look like. And so I would say to One Nation, which... is the party at the moment that would appear to have the upper hand. If you were to end up forming a government with the Liberal and National parties, would you prefer that to be one in which you had the involvement of Matt Canavan? Because I certainly think that the government would be better for having him in it. And I know that neither side wants to be seen to be doing a deal because that would be to kind of admit that you can't govern in your own right and that looks weak. So I get that they don't want to do any outward deals, and that makes sense. But

7:33Speaker 2:if Pauline Hanson and Matt Canavan are both thinking about running in Capricornia, then I think they need to knock their heads together and come up with a solution. Because to have them both running in the same seat would not ultimately be the best thing for the country. And the best thing for the country right now is to get rid of the Albanese government. That's the main game. That's what Every right of centre party needs to be working towards. And in that, there is a shared goal.

8:02Speaker 2:And then you have to think about what a government might look like on the other side. Because you don't get rid of the Albanese government without having another government to install. And looking at the numbers we're seeing at the moment, it's very hard to see a situation in which the coalition could win in its own right or that one nation could win in its own right. Because across the board, the primary votes are relatively low. I could be wrong. Who knows where the preferences flow? But it's hard to see on what I'm looking at at the moment how that would work. And I think it would be a real shame to see two of our best conservative politicians facing off against each other in the same electorate when that didn't need to happen. That wouldn't be the best thing for the country. While I'm talking about what's best for conservative politics in this country, you would have seen in the hour before this, Shari Markson's extensive interview with the former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Now, Josh Frydenberg, I think, is an impressive man. He's made a great contribution to public life, and I suspect he would like

9:06Speaker 2:to contribute more to public life. I mean, he was always speculated to be a future leader of the Liberal Party, but, of course, that was all cut short by the Teal phenomenon. And Shari asked him about this, but he kind of sidestepped.

9:19Speaker 4:The question As for my future, I will make those decisions at the appropriate time.

9:27Speaker 2:You're being encouraged to run.

9:29Speaker 4:If you were looking outside in at the Liberal Party, you would say the more people they can get to run who have either got experience or perspectives that are needed, a good thing.

9:40Speaker 6:It does feel to me like you've always had this sense of destiny about you, that you would end.

9:45Speaker 7:Up as Prime Minister.

9:46Speaker 4:They're your words, not mine.

9:47Speaker 5:Do you still have those ambitions, though?

9:49Speaker 7:Would you like to be Prime Minister?

9:52Speaker 4:Look, I think anyone who enters the political race wants to rise up to the top.

9:58Speaker 2:I think he sidestepped it. just enough to not have to answer directly. You read between the lines. I think what he's saying is that he does harbour ambitions to go back into politics. And he talks about the fact, you know, I think as many different perspectives and experience that we can get into the party right now is a good thing. And I take his point. But he has to think deeply, as does the Liberal Party, about what there is to gain from that and what the ultimate goal is. Is he going into politics again because he wants to be the Prime Minister? And is that the vision that the Liberal Party sees for the future?

10:37Speaker 2:Does the Liberal Party see Josh Frydenberg as their future, or at the very least, part of their future? Now, the unfortunate thing for the Liberal Party is that the Morrison government, in which of course Mr Frydenberg was treasurer, ended up being deeply unpopular. And Mr Frydenberg talked at length about that. And to be fair, a lot of the problems that the Coalition has faced and continues to face go back further than that. They go back to the Turnbull government. But there was still a lot of damage done to the liberal brand in the Morrison era.

11:11Speaker 2:I mean, this was the time that we went into the Paris Agreement and adopted net zero, which I think in hindsight, many in the party would say was a mistake. But there are also many in the party who would say it was the right thing to do. And this is the problem for the Liberal Party now. With the rise of One Nation, the Liberal Party has to decide what it actually wants to be. And in his book, Mr Frydenberg writes a little bit about this. This was part of an edited extract that was published in The Weekend Australian. He writes, quote, the electorate is better educated with higher professional qualifications, particularly for women. The share of people in manufacturing work, meanwhile, has halved. More and more services employees have flexible work arrangements. He's comparing to previous coalition governments. The party has remained impervious to this. We've become obsessed with who is leading us rather than who could be voting for us. State divisions are crippled by infighting and ageing membership is in decline and our party's campaigning capability has not kept up with technology. All of

12:16Speaker 2:this is fundamentally true. But he goes on. The coalition must restore its primary vote to the high 30s or low 40s if it is to pave a pathway to government. Bear in mind, no party's doing that at the moment. That's my words. There is no goat track, he says, back to government through regional and outer suburban seats alone. We must bridge the divide and win votes in the cities and among younger members of the electorate. We need to stop talking only to ourselves. If our vote recedes further in 2028, I cannot see this party surviving in its current form. So now... He's basically setting up that the Coalition needs to find some sort of centre, some kind of middle ground. He continues, Our return path is further complicated by the rise of One Nation, a party of grievance that has capitalised on the Coalition's woes and the general disaffection for politicians. The upswell in their support has seen them move from a national primary vote of 6.4% at the 2025 election to recent polling that chose them above 30%. The seismic shift, this seismic shift, is a result, he writes, of a confluence of factors. First, the salience

13:30Speaker 2:of immigration as an issue in voters' minds. Second, the growing economic stress facing many households, leaving them susceptible to a populist message of a quick fix. Third, coalition infighting, cruelling its ability to effectively communicate strong, clear policies. The One Nation threat, he writes, will not soon fade away. It reflects a fundamental realignment... taking place in our body politic. So he's admitted that there's a fundamental realignment. And this is the biggest problem for the coalition, and to some degree the Labor Party as well, which is seeing that its primary vote is sinking to historic lows too. I mean, we're not just talking about, well, the polls are down for one party, and due to the cyclical nature of politics in Australia, it will come back to the other party, which is kind of what has happened for More than 100 years. We're talking about people looking at the same old parties and the same old systems that have been around for a long time and fundamentally saying, I don't think they work anymore. And so rather than saying, well, I'll go and look at the other mob, which is

14:40Speaker 2:what's been happening ever since Menzies established the Liberal Party, people are looking towards something completely different. And it's within that context. that the Liberal Party and the Coalition has to consider what its future might look like. I'll read one more excerpt from Mr Frydenberg's book on this. He writes, as with the support for Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in the UK, people are voting for these anti-establishment personalities and parties based on what affects them, not what offends them. We must engage these lost voters and win back their trust because they will not simply drift back to where they were. And he's right. They're not going to just drift back to the coalition or to the Liberal Party. But given that people are leaving major parties to go to something a bit more unorthodox, how do you actually win people back from the centre? Who is this centre, this middle ground that Mr Frydenberg wants the coalition to win back? Because many of these people who've gone to One Nation may have once upon a time been in the centre or considered themselves close to the centre, but they've been lost because governments running the

15:53Speaker 2:show from the centre have done such a bad job of it in recent decades. They don't want the centre anymore. They want to shake the joint up. They want something completely different. And they don't mind giving a mob with no experience in government the opportunity to do it because they figure, well, how bad could it possibly be? It couldn't be any worse than what we've already had. So this is the difficulty of the argument. You can say, I've got the experience. We know how to govern. We've been there before. But people are looking at those things going, well, hang on a minute. Last time you did it, we didn't much like it. And we don't like the mob that's doing it now either. So we're going to go and look for something totally different. That's the problem that the party has. And it's a problem that someone like Mr Frydenberg would have if he wants to go back into politics, because he's kind of still got that albatross around his neck, for better or for worse. And I get for Mr Frydenberg that he views these things through the context of the fact that he lost his seat to a Teal candidate, you know, an inner-city, generally wealthy seat.

17:02Speaker 2:But that is not Australia more broadly, and it's also not, by and large, the people who've turned to One Nation. The people who voted Teal, if they were ex-liberal voters... left the Liberal Party some time ago, long before this whole one nation phenomenon took off. And they left the Liberal Party at a time when it was reasonably moderate. The Teals are also, it should be noted, the beneficiaries of demographic change in the inner city. They're the beneficiaries of high density developments and a preferential voting system. They don't win by being the most popular candidate. You go and look at how these votes have gone in all these teal seats. They win by splitting the vote and then the preference is eventually delivering them the seat. And Mr Frydenberg writes that there is no goat track back to government through regional and outer suburban seats alone. And that might be true. You know, it's not the only way that you can get back. But the Liberal Party should have been chasing that ground a long time ago.

18:06Speaker 2:The more that Labor shifted towards inner-city wealthy seats, the more the Coalition should have been targeting those working-class, outer-suburban and regional areas. But it also had its eye on those inner-city seats, like the one that Josh Frydenberg lost, Ku Yong, and losing those seats to the Teals. They were worried about that. And I don't think the party could really decide what to do, which camp to chase... And so it had a foot in both camps. And it didn't work. You know, they effectively did nothing. And now we see the position that they're left in. And those outer suburban and regional areas, many of them where Labor has done quite well, seats that change hands depending on who's in government, they're now turning to One Nation.

18:55Speaker 2:I mean, One Nation is doing better with working-class voters than Labor is. Now, maybe if the Coalition... had responded to them back then, they wouldn't have looked to One Nation. So who is it that the coalition actually wins back from the centre? I'm not entirely sure. Now let's switch gears to the mob that's actually in charge, because of course they're running the show, and the Prime Minister wants us to believe that this government truly is the best for small business, as though they haven't been doing everything possible this year to to smash small business. The News Corp papers today had a story about a new campaign being funded by small business owners, an ad campaign against the federal government, specifically on its tax changes and now, of course, the credit surcharge ban and how all of this is affecting small business. But the Prime Minister today insists nothing was wrong because actually the number of small businesses has grown under his government.

19:56Speaker 8:We back Australia's small businesses. We value their contribution and indeed under Labor The number of small businesses since we came to office is today 2.7 million. That is 265,000 more than were there when we came to office in 2022. Small business is absolutely vital to the Australian economy, no question about that, and we want small business to grow and to thrive. And we pay tribute to those who aspire, who take risks, who invest in not just themselves and their families, but they invest in the future of the Australian economy.

20:43Speaker 2:Well, the population has also grown quite significantly due to mass migration in that time. So you'd imagine that the number of small businesses would naturally have to grow. There's more people that need to be serviced, so you get more businesses. But perhaps you might like to tell us how many of those New small businesses are basically underpinned by government funding, i.e. the NDIS, and how many actually exist entirely in the private sector. Perhaps he might like to address why insolvency rates are surging to record highs.

21:15Speaker 2:But putting all of that to one side, it's pretty arrogant for the Prime Minister to try to pretend that he has done anything good for small business. I think when they... made changes to capital gains tax in the budget in May, they genuinely thought it wouldn't upset anyone except property investors. But of course, business owners are investors as well. So if they want to sell their business, they are liable to pay capital gains tax on that sale.

21:41Speaker 2:And under the new capital gains tax regime, you will pay it at your marginal tax rate on the profit that you've made. And if you're earning a good income, then your tax rate's nearly 50 cents. And so basically half of the real profit above inflation you'll have to hand over to the government. And that incensed small business owners, and rightly so. But I don't think the government even considered that that was a thing. It actively disincentivises the creation of new small businesses. Because say you start your business as a website. I mean, what's the cost base of your business, Serb? $ 30 domain name, maybe the cost of getting someone to build a website for you. And then if you manage to turn that into a multi-million dollar business and you go to sell it to someone, your level of profit, the growth of your business, basically starts from zero. So it's obviously going to be well above the rate of inflation. And so then you have to go and give half of those profits over to the government. It would be far more cost effective to just go and buy an existing business and work on that because then your cost base, if you want to

22:49Speaker 2:go and sell it later, will be much higher, and you won't have to incur the damage of the tax that you pay on that large initial growth when you build a business from nothing. So there's that. Then you have the compulsory tax on discretionary trusts, which affects the structure of many small businesses and the taxes that they have to pay. And then you have this completely bungled card surcharge ban, which, as I've said before... I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing because if the cost put on by the bank is then reflected in the sales price, as it says on the ticket or the board, as opposed to being added as a surcharge afterwards, I don't have an issue with that. But the issue is that the government went out and told people that things would be cheaper because it basically expected small businesses to absorb the cost of the surcharge rather than pass it on to the consumers in the price. And then it got called out not wanting to absorb the cost because the ATO wouldn't let you pay a tax bill with a credit card anymore because it would have to cop the surcharge. And so there was Small Business Minister Anne

23:54Speaker 2:Arley today saying how good this government was for small business, but also completely dodging the question of when she learnt that the ATO was going to stop businesses paying taxes by credit card.

24:07Speaker 7:This side of the house understands.

24:09Speaker 5:What small businesses are dealing with as prices, as the cost of doing business increases, as margins decrease. On this side of the house, we actually get out there and talk.

24:20Speaker 2:To small businesses.

24:21Speaker 5:I'm proud of a government that has allocated so much in the budget. to assist small businesses. On the matter of the credit card surcharge or the ban to the credit card surcharge, it was a decision that was made by the RBA. I became aware of it, as did everyone else, when the RBA made that decision and made it public. I think it's pretty clear from the statements that were made by the RBA, the RBA made the decision to ban surcharges and the ATO responded.

24:52Speaker 2:For a government that claims to know so much about small businesses and to do so much to support small business, you seem to have pissed off an awful lot of them. I'm not sure I'd be touting my small business credentials at the moment. Coming up after the break, the Bondi Royal Commission will now have extra hearings behind closed doors into whether there were major security and intelligence failures before the terror attack. I'll talk to the panel about that in a minute. Thanks for tuning in tonight. Plenty more to come. Welcome back. Caleb Bond in the chair for Paul this week. Joining me now is the PR Council's founder, Christy McSweeney. We're waiting for Matt Canavan. He's lost in the ether somewhere, but we will get hold of him soon. But, Christy, I know you and I can both talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles, so we shouldn't struggle too much.

25:42Speaker 2:I want to start with the... Certainly can... the Royal Commission. We've learnt today that they're now going to have extra hearings behind closed doors... specifically into issues around intelligence and national security and the failures that may have occurred in the lead up to the Bondi terror attack, of course, last December. I think it underlines that this whole process really has been rushed. I mean, the government didn't want to have this Royal Commission in the first place, right?

26:17Speaker 2:And I think the whole thing has been rushed to the point where you've clearly now got the Royal Commission of Virginia Bell looking at what she's got in front of her and saying, actually, hang on a minute, some of this needs to be interrogated more. I don't think she should have ever been put in a position in the first place where she should have to ask to go and get more time. They should have said, we're going to do this thing and we're going to do it properly.

26:45Speaker 1:Look, you're right.

26:46Speaker 6:It's been really difficult from the start. Of course, the government was dragged kicking and screaming back to Parliament to have a royal commission, which then... ironically ended up splitting the Liberal Party over hate speech legislation that was included as part of that, off the back of them actually bringing the government back to Parliament to say, let's pass this, let's have this Royal Commission, let's announce it. Then, of course, we had the interim report, which was not progressed properly.

27:18Speaker 6:And there was some changes with staff and various commissioners. And now we have... some really serious issues of national intelligence, and those issues have been referenced before, and I commend Commissioner Bell for going into those issues and suggesting that we need significant closed-door hearings. I think the government's made a mistake. First of all, you know, they rushed themselves to meet the demands of the coalitions. It was bad politics from them from the start. They could have said, we will have it, We accept it will take a significant amount of time. We want to properly investigate our security and intelligence agencies and the failures that may have led to what we saw in Bondi. And I think Australians would have accepted that. So in a rush to play politics and in a rush to be seen to be doing something about it, which they didn't want to, we have now got this situation here.

28:19Speaker 2:And, of course, we've got Matt Canavan now. Matt, good to see you, mate. There was a tight turnaround on that interim report as well. Just the fact that they're in a position where they have to go back and do more work now, Matt, I just think proves that this whole thing, as important as it is, was to some degree launched by the government for show because they were backed into a corner on it.

28:46Speaker 3:Yeah, look, I've been critical of the way the Royal Commission has gone forward here. I read the interim report and there just didn't seem to be enough focus on the major issue, I think, for most Australians in seeing those events unfold, which is the spread of violent Islamic ideologies and extremism. Although there was focus on the firearms issues and those things, but not on that prime issue.

29:13Speaker 1:I also think.

29:14Speaker 3:That there is a range here of issues involving the intelligence services and what they knew and who knew it when. And I'm glad these extra hearings are being added to focus on those things. Obviously, there's certain things that may not be able to be disclosed to the public, but I think we've got to learn lessons. And I say that as not someone saying that somehow I have major concerns with their intelligence agencies. It's just that we've got to get to the bottom of what happened. We've got to learn lessons. And no one should be off limits here.

29:41Speaker 3:After the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, we've got to make sure, we've got to pull apart every or turn over every rock to make sure this never happens again.

29:51Speaker 2:Certainly. And, look, the fact that they're having these extra hearings, part of me is glad that they're doing that because I do want them to investigate everything fully. I just wish they had been given the time and the space to do it properly in the first place without having to go back to things. Matt, there was a few different polls came out overnight. One was the Demos, new Demos poll for Capital Brief. They've got Labor up one point. They've got One Nation down four points to 26%. You're up one point in the Coalition to 22%. They've also got the Greens on 20%, which is quite something. And we saw news pollers, Will, overnight that had Labor at 29%, One Nation at 28%, the Coalition at 20%, and the Greens at 14%. I suppose the question now... We've seen over the last couple of months, Matt, there's sort of been a ceiling, it would seem, hit for where One Nation can go with its vote... You know, it's got as high as 30-odd per cent, but it hasn't been able to push much beyond that. The coalition seems to be pretty steady now in the 20 range. Is this going to become situation normal, do you think?

31:01Speaker 3:Well, look, I think it's a pretty volatile time in our politics, and if we think back just a year ago, these were nothing like that. If we think back at the election just 18 months ago... the One Nation Party didn't really do anything different from what it had previously done.

31:16Speaker 1:So, look, there's as much time since.

31:19Speaker 3:The last election as there is until the next election. So a lot of things can change between now and then. I think it's also lost a lot that one thing these polls never take into account is the value and benefit of a.

31:32Speaker 1:Good local member..... because, by.

31:35Speaker 3:Definition, there's no criticism of these polls. They just poll the party, the political party. They don't name the candidate each individual seat. And I'm very proud of the Nationals team that I lead. I was with Michael McCormack last week in Wagga Wagga. You know, really great local member. Knows everyone down the local street. Works very hard for his electorate. Knows it inside and out. And I'm proud to lead a fantastic team. And that team that we take to the election... I think, you know, is more than the sum of its parts. So we'll see what happens.

32:04Speaker 3:I'm just going to fight like hell to the next election because I fear our country is being lost right now, not just in terms of our economy, which is clearly going backwards, but also just our culture and identity, I think, is ebbing away.

32:18Speaker 1:And I want to change that. I want to get back in.

32:20Speaker 3:We've got plans to cut migration, return to a values-based migration plan, cut taxes, lift our prosperity, scrap net zero and bring down energy prices and keep industry in this country. So that's what I'll be focused on with my great team before the next election.

32:34Speaker 2:And it's good to see some policy meat on the bone now, because I think, Christy, that's really the only thing the coalition can actually use to wrestle people back from One Nation. But I go back to what I was reading earlier, an excerpt from Josh Frydenberg's book, and he's saying, you know, we need to get the coalition back to a primary in the 30s and 40s if we want to do this seriously. It's an uphill battle.

33:00Speaker 6:Well, we have a situation now where both major parties are polling pretty much, not polling, but in an electoral environment, are coming in at about 32%, 33% each. And that means that the left is becoming more and more binary to hunker down their core base and meet what, in political terms, would be their algorithm, because we don't discount social media or... and how that drives people to their corners now. And David Shoebridge has been very, very transparent about that, saying that the left have to gain as much momentum on the left as One Nation has on the right, and you have One Nation on the right doing so. So the major parties are still there, roughly battling for 60% of the centre. Now, the challenge for the major parties is, how many of those centre voters are going to be pushed to the corners. And we're going to see the two what we call parties of government be drowned out where those policy announcements and that economic plan and things that we always rely on people to be vote drivers from are no longer vote drivers.

34:14Speaker 6:Politics has always been about emotion and never more so when you can mount emotive arguments and not necessarily have to be accountable for them because you will never be pitching for that 60% in the centre. and you are never positioning as a party of government. And even in our polling, as you know, I work for Redbridge Polling, even people who say, I am locked and loaded behind One Nation, wholeheartedly will say to you that they do not believe she can govern the country.

34:43Speaker 2:And it's an interesting question because when push comes to shove, you know, you can have people saying now, look, I don't like what I'm looking at. Does that change when you get into a ballot box? I don't know. We'll have to wait a long time to find it out. 2028 is probably when. And one of the things that will come up potentially in 2028, Matt, you have foreshadowed that you might run in the lower house if you think that would deliver an extra seat for the Nationals.

35:09Speaker 2:in the lower house, and one of the seats you've talked about is Capricornia, which I believe you live in. But Andrew Clonnell was talking this afternoon about the fact that Pauline Hanson has bought property in the seat and is thinking about building a house there, and so she might also be considering a tilt at Capricornia. What would you do if it came to a situation where it looked like you both might have a go at that electorate?

35:38Speaker 1:Well, bring it on.

35:39Speaker 3:I'm happy to take on anybody to fight for my country. Look, I said on Andrew yesterday, I'm under no illusions.

35:49Speaker 1:There's no guarantee I win.

35:52Speaker 3:I'd never have approached this honour and privilege as some kind of entitlement. I very much know this could be my last election, the next one, and I'm very comfortable with that. So, Whoever wants to run, I actually encourage everybody to run.

36:07Speaker 1:It's great. It's great.

36:08Speaker 3:I love elections. I thrive off them. I love the battle and the contest. And, yeah, look, whoever wants to. Now, I'm very happy to stand on the record of the LNP in central Queensland. I've got a fantastic local member there, Michelle Landry. She's won five elections in a row. Previously we'd never run one more than two in a row.

36:25Speaker 1:That's built on.

36:26Speaker 3:The fact that she's delivered for that local area. We've fought for central Queensland together as a team. We've delivered things like the Rocky Ring Road, the Rocky Yipoon Upgrade. maintenance facilities at the Rockhampton Airport, the Rookwood Weirs helping build 800,000 macadamia trees right now, the Adani Carmichael Mine took on the world and delivered 2,000 jobs for people there, Beef Roads right through the western parts of the electorate, and the list goes.

36:52Speaker 1:On and on and on.

36:53Speaker 3:I can keep going if you like, but I'll bore your viewers. But, yeah, we just love fighting for our region. And it's a fantastic part of our country with so much opportunity. And I'd love Michelle to run again because it would be less worry for me. But whatever happens, as I say, I'll do whatever it takes to remove this terrible government.

37:09Speaker 2:Just to put the party politics aside for a moment, though, Matt, don't you think it would be a bad situation for right of centre politics generally to if you and Pauline Hanson ended up fighting each other in the same electorate? Like, if you're looking at the potential make-up of a government on the other side of an election, and, of course, the coalition will be running to win outright, but say that doesn't happen, would it not be better to have both you and Pauline Hanson in the parliament?

37:37Speaker 3:I'm never going to ask someone not to run for parliament. That's everybody's right as an Australian. All I'd say... And, look, these are all hypotheticals.

37:46Speaker 1:I don't know. As I say, I'd love Michelle to run. And, you know, we can continue that, her great legacy.

37:53Speaker 3:But I do live in Capricornia. I don't have to think of building a house there. You know, I live in one with my wife and, well, now four children. The eldest has gone off to Brisbane to study. We love the place, absolutely love it, and, as I say, I'll be willing to take on anyone to have the right to continue to represent central Queensland, whether it's in the lower house or in the upper house. I just love it and it's been such a privilege. deliver so many results for the great region that is central Queensland.

38:21Speaker 2:All right, we shall wait and see. Christy, data centres, of course, we know that the federal government has said, oh, well, they all need to be powered with renewable energy, which is patently ridiculous. And the people wanting to build these data centres are now saying, well, we're running out of power as it is. We can't do it. So how the hell are we possibly meant to do it with the pipeline that we currently have of renewable energy. It's just an insane policy, isn't it? And they should be built in the right places, but I think we're going to miss out on a lot of investment here.

38:51Speaker 6:Look, they should be built in the right places, but what we're seeing is that in the government's haste to call data centres and building large warehouses full of flashing lights for want of a, you know, a better term, is that they're being hoisted upon communities and communities are getting pretty upset about them. This is just an infrastructure program that is being managed really badly. What the actual issue is that Australia has no AI policy. no policy about artificial intelligence, no policy about sovereign data. We are stuck on data centres, which are just big warehouses. Sure, it's a lot of investment. but it has been managed badly with communities and there's a lot of opposition out there and not much to contrast with in terms of the benefits, because guess what?

39:39Speaker 7:No-one's told us yet.

39:41Speaker 2:Yep, I know. I've only got 20 seconds, Matt, but seriously, powering them with renewable energy, stupid, isn't it?

39:48Speaker 3:Well, data centres are about the most power-hungry thing in the world, and the key distinction is they run 24-7. Renewable energy doesn't do that. As I said about last week's climate flop there in the Pacific, did you see Chris Bowen went for a sleep during the conference? I don't blame him because he's used to things only working intermittently and switching off unexpectedly. That's not what we need for a data centre revolution.

40:14Speaker 2:He's given us the real life demonstration. Matt Canavan, Christy McSweeney, great to talk to you both as always. Thanks for being here. And I'll talk to Jacinta Nabajipa-Price on the other side of this, on her push to make Australia's failing child protection system a Commonwealth responsibility. She thinks that could help fix it. Don't go away. Kayla Bond in for Paul. Joining me now is Shadow Small Business Minister Jacinta Nampajipa-Price. Good to see you as always. I do want to talk to you about child protection and what's going on in WA, but I just want to talk to you first about your capacity as Shadow Small Business Minister.

40:52Speaker 2:I couldn't get over today that the Prime Minister and your equivalent in the government and Ali basically carrying on as though they're the greatest government that's ever existed for small business and they get small business and we've done so much to support small business. How have they managed to pee off so many small business owners in that case?

41:15Speaker 7:Look, this is the ridiculousness of this Albanese Labor government. The small business minister, everywhere I go when I speak to small businesses, they are deeply, deeply hurt. They're deeply upset. They are beside themselves because this government keeps changing the goalposts, keeps making their lives harder. You know, the latest issue with the credit card surcharges, And this government, I think, confusing hiding money with, you know, hiding costs with lowering costs.

41:50Speaker 7:And it's just ridiculous. One thing I do ask small businesses everywhere I go, besides, you know, what are the top issues that are affecting you right now that are making you consider closing your doors after being in business for decades, is do you know who the small business minister is in the Albanese government? And That is when a room full of small business people at roundtables falls silent and they all look at one another as if to say, no, we don't know who that person is.

42:22Speaker 7:And I don't know how Anne Alley gets off on trying to tell the Australian people that they're doing a remarkable job. Small businesses don't even know who she is. I'm sure I would like to understand how many small businesses she actually speaks to to understand the struggles that they're currently faced with. It's utterly ridiculous and it's shameful on behalf of this government.

42:46Speaker 2:And there's been so much this year. I mean, obviously the capital gains tax changes hurt small business. You've got the tax changes for trusts hurt small business. you've got this credit card surcharge stuff, which, you know, if it's all baked into the cost of the product, doesn't have to cost a small business anymore, but that's not what the government wanted them to do. The government wanted them to basically absorb the cost, which is what they've done with the ATOs. They've got egg on their face for that.

43:14Speaker 2:Interest rates have gone up, which, of course, we always talk about mortgages all the time, but most business owners have borrowed money... to start a business or they've got their house tied up in all of this. It goes on and on. And yet they claim that they've done nothing wrong. I just don't know how they can possibly make the argument.

43:35Speaker 7:No, I mean, they're failing in the argument at every turn. And you're absolutely right. The cost of doing business continues to rise. And whether that is when it comes to the cost of fuel, of petrol, whether it comes to the cost of which has soared through the roof under the Albanese government and their net zero ideological, you know, pursuing net zero with their ideological policy, with the cost of insurance that is going up. And of course, rightly, as you have said, interest rates going up. So it's making borrowing impossible for small businesses, but also regulation, the amount of regulation that small businesses have to deal with.

44:22Speaker 7:It is something else that drags them away from being able to ensure their business is growing, ensuring that they can actually employ more people, offer apprenticeships, Who's going to train the next generation of tradespeople in our country? That's why we've got a worker shortage right across the country, because this government doesn't understand how to support small business, but nor do they care to, in fact, support small business.

44:50Speaker 2:Indeed. Now, you spoke at the weekend at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, about these awful stories we've been hearing today. out of Western Australia and the great work of Ros Thomas in the Oz to bring them to light about the way Indigenous children in particular are being treated over there. You say it needs to come under Commonwealth control. What's your plan to fix this disgrace on our nation?

45:15Speaker 7:Well, as the current situation stands throughout our country from state to state, territory to territory, there's a different approach to child protection. In Western Australia, it's utterly disgraceful that we've got Roger Cook who won't even support an inquest into the deaths of the three grandchildren, Dorothy Papertalk's grandchildren, who were murdered by their own mother. You know, I mean, I'm in the Northern Territory. I'm pleased to see that the Leah Finocchiaro government are actually taking steps in terms of child protection. And what I would like to see is other states take the same sort of approach, which is going away from the ideological approach where Indigenous children are treated differently to all other children in this country.

46:05Speaker 7:Stop prioritising this romanticised concept of connection to culture and connection to country. It's a little bit infantilising to think that all Indigenous people are just more concerned about their culture and their country than their wellbeing, than living lives free of violence, alcohol, sexual abuse, neglect, of being able to get an education, to actually survive and thrive in a modern Australia. This is such an outdated approach. The Finocchia government are taking seriously the approach to ensuring that it's the children's human rights are being upheld fundamentally over these other ideological approaches. And what I'd like to see is other, all of our country take these approaches, but also for a prime minister to actually take responsibility for the most vulnerable people in our country. And the way the system currently is gives this federal government get out a jail card to actually address this issue. I mean, since the alleged murder of my niece, immediately following that, the Prime Minister and the Minister basically said, we can't talk about this. This is, you know, this is not

47:22Speaker 7:an issue we can talk about. You know, the family are going through sorry business. Well, they haven't said boo about it ever since. And it should be everybody's priority to and that we need to start investigating ways from a federal perspective where we can make these states accountable for their inability to protect our most vulnerable citizens. And it's not just Indigenous children in this country, it's non-Indigenous children as well. And so we need to start exploring how we can do that, I believe.

47:55Speaker 2:Yep, 100%. I could not have said it better myself. That's why we get you on. Jacinta Napajimpa Price, thank you so much for joining me. She always speaks so much common sense. It's great to have her here. All right, still to come, another Welcome to Country met with booing over the weekend. That's after the break. Just very quickly, you might have seen that at the FA Cup over the weekend, people boot the welcome to country. Just very quickly, you might have seen that at the FA Cup over the weekend, people boot the welcome to country. Would I do it?

48:25Speaker 6:No.

48:25Speaker 2:Do I think it's unedifying? Yes. But do I understand why it happens? Yes. Tone it down. People won't get so angry. Thanks for joining me tonight. I'll be back tomorrow. Here's the late debate.