Politics With Michelle Grattan

On Tuesday, the 2020 budget will be brought down. It will show a huge deficit for this financial year and massive government spending, aimed at promoting economic recovery and reducing unemployment. In the wake of COVID, the Coalition’s usual preoccupation with “debt and deficit” has become very yesterday. On this week’s Politics podcast, we speaks with Chris Richardson, partner at Deloitte Access Economics. Deloitte’s Economics Budget Monitor, released this week, favoured bringing forward the tax cuts as one measure to stimulate the economy and expected the deficit to be holding up better than earlier thought. Like economists in a recent survey  Richardson says the budget should prioritise a permanent boost to JobSeeker and fund more social housing: “The least noticed thing about this crisis is how geographically specific it is,” he says. “The job losses in Australia have been far and away the biggest where unemployment rates, suburb by suburb, town by town, out in the bush, were already the highest. … The a

On October 17, New Zealanders will head to the polls to vote in a general election and also on referendum questions for the legalisation of cannabis and euthansia. In a head-to-head between two women, Labour’s Jacinda Ardern appears to be heading to a comfortable win against National Judith Collins, who only recently became her party’s leader. This week NZ’s three term ex-PM Helen Clark joins the podcast to discuss the World Health Organisation’s investigation into COVID preparedness and response, and the New Zealand political scene. Clark is a significant global player, a strong voice on the issues of climate change, gender equality, and women’s leadership, through her work with prominent bodies in the United Nations. Most recently, Clark was appointed co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which will present a report on how to effectively address health threats as they develop. In NZ, an election in the wake of a pandemic creates a unique range of issues for voters. Ardern

The Coalition is having yet another go at crafting an energy policy. Faced with the huge economic challenges presented by COVID, the government this week announced its "gas-fired recovery". But the policy is already under fire from both environmentalists and coal advocates, and the energy sector warns it could discourage investors.  Part of the announcement was a threat – the government will build a gas generator in the Hunter Valley if the private sector fails to fill the gap in power supply that will be created by the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power plant.  This dramatic form of intervention would seem very much against the Liberal grain. But Energy Minister Angus Taylor says: "Our focus is on good competitive markets. That's a Liberal Party philosophy.  "Our belief is in the importance of affordable, reliable energy - we want the private sector to deliver it. That's their obligation to their customers, we believe. But if they don't, we will step in." Despite the focus on gas,  Taylor said renewable

In light of Victoria’s cautious roadmap out of lockdown, with some experts claiming the exit is too fast, and others believing it is unnecessarily slow, the modelling underpinning the decisions is under close scrutiny. University of Melbourne Professor Jodie McVernon is director of epidemiology at the Doherty Institute, and a modelling expert. She tells the podcast, “I think the broad qualitative conclusions of the model would have been reached by really any kind of model formulation - that the lower numbers can be driven down, the less likely a resurgence would be”. This week saw a pause in the progress towards a hoped-for Oxford vaccine, when a clinical trial produced an unexplained illness in one participants.   But McVernon remains optimistic. “I think we will get vaccines. I don’t think we’ll get perfect ones, but I’m hoping we’ll get useful ones – because without vaccines, we only have behaviour to prevent this disease. … So I think [a vaccine will] be one of a suite of things that we’ll be using in

Had the 2019 election panned out differently, Chris Bowen would have been the treasurer coping with Australia's current economic crisis. Instead, as shadow health minister, he has been critical of aspects of the government's handling of the health issues, especially its failure to act earlier and more comprehensively to secure access to potential vaccines. With Labor homing in on aged care, which has seen the deaths of hundred of residents, Bowen in this podcast questionsd the performance of the regulator, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.  "I was frankly shocked by a number of things. "I was shocked by the fact the regulator was informed by St Basil's, [that] they had a positive case – and on the face of it, did nothing. I've seen no evidence that they actually did anything about it. Their defence is it was somebody else's job - we had no role to play. "I just don't think that cuts the mustard for a regulator.  "I was surprised to learn that no-notice or very short notice inspections had [ by the

In February, then Greens’ leader Richard Di Natale stepped down from the leadership after five years and announced he’d leave parliament to spend for more time with his family. On Tuesday, he delivered his valedictory speech to the senate – remotely – and on Wednesday, he formally resigned. In his speech Di Natale said “We’ve closed off the [parliament] building to the community, but we’re throwing the gates wide open to vested interests with deep pockets.” Asked if there should be tougher control on lobbying and what could be done to limit the power of “vested interests”, he says: “There’s a few things that need to happen. "The first thing is political donations. There are cancer on our democracy, and we need to immediately move to a system of public funding of election campaigns with basically the prohibition of all corporate donations.” “The second thing you have to do is … close that revolving door between lobbyists and MP’s… It’s remarkable that some MPs don’t even leave the parliament before they get on

With the withdrawal of the international market, and the stresses of delivering education virtually, the university sector has been hit especially hard by COVID-19. The sector, which in the 2018-2019 financial year contributed $37.6 billion in export income to the Australian economy, is a shadow of its former self. Meanwhile the government last week released its controversial “JobReady Graduates” draft legislation, which aims to promote study in areas it believes will increase the employment prospects of graduates. A new fee structure will steer students towards STEM fields, IT, teaching, nursing and away from the humanities and law. Professor Barney Glover, former chair of Universities Australia, a peak body for the higher education sector, is Vice Chancellor of Western Sydney University. Among his many roles on advisory committees, he’s on the New South Wales International Education Advisory Board. While acknowledging the need for innovation and reform in how higher education is delivered, Professor Glover

The second wave of the pandemic in Victoria has pushed the post-COVID economic recovery further beyond the horizon. Among the challenges for the federal opposition are dealing itself into the debate and formulating alternative economic policies before the next election. With speculation the budget may bring forward the next tranche of the legislated tax cuts, Labor is leaving the way open to give its support. “We’ve said for some time that that’s something that the Government should consider. We’d have an open mind to that if they came to us with a proposal. They don’t yet have a specific proposal. We’ve had some smoke signals about it for some time now…” Jim Chalmers, Shadow Treasurer, tells The Conversation. “If they came to us and said that they wanted to bring forward stage two of the legislated tax cuts, then we’d engage with them in a pretty constructive way. We’ve said that for some time.” A high danger is Australia may come out the COVID recession as a more unequal society. Charmers says: “My big fear

The Royal Commission into Aged-Care Quality and Safety delivered it’s interim report in October 2019. Titled ‘Neglect’, it provided a scathing insight into the aged care industry - finding it centred around transactions not care. It minimised the voices of people receiving care, lacked transparency, and was staffed by an under-appreciated and under-pressure workforce. The outbreak of coronavirus, and the second-wave of infections in Melbourne, has raised fresh questions. The virus has infected residents and staff en masse, leaving aged-care residents major victims of the pandemic. Read more: View from The Hill: There's no case for keeping secret any aged care facility's COVID details NSW Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was the shadow minister for ageing for four years, during Tony Abbott’s time as opposition leader. She has made a detailed submission to the Royal Commission, critical of the government’s attempts to reform the troubled sector. The Royal Commission is holding hearings next week to take evide

Those in aged care have been some of the hardest hit by the coronavirus second wave in Victoria. Even before the crisis, there were calls for reform of the sector, which is currently being examined by a royal commission. Issues with staffing and delivery of care have only become worse as many workers are required to isolate, with mass transmission occurring in the  homes.   Patricia Sparrow is CEO of Aged & Community Services Australia, a peak body which represents not-for-profit members providing residential care for some 450,000 people throughout the country.   One of the many issues with the aged care sector, Sparrow says, is a failure to define the role and purpose of aged care.   "They used to be called nursing homes and that's what people thought they were. But in recent times ... there's been a move to them being more home-like and less emphasis on [the] clinical. So I think one of the critical things we need to do is actually to determine what is it that aged care is providing."   "We need to deci

Geoff Kitney fell into a career in journalism, and rose from reporting the local footy in Western Australia to covering many of federal politics's biggest stories and serving as a foreign correspondent based in Berlin and London.   Arriving at parliament house in 1975, Kitney reported on the dramatic Dismissal. Later, the relative decorum of the Canberra press gallery contrasted with the danger and adventure of war reporting.   During the Kosovo war, he was sent to Belgrade, travelling there in a bus with a crowd of Serbians.   "It was very, very strange bus trip because we'd passed houses with MiG fighters parked in the driveways ... [Slobodan Milošević] was trying to stop NATO destroying his airforce. So he put the MiG fighters next to people's houses so that they wouldn't hit them, which meant that he couldn't use them, but at least he still had them."   In Kitney's new book, Beyond the Newsroom, based around his decades of reporting and analysis, he also has some sharp observations about what's happened t

In this fourth episode of the Conversation-Democracy 2025 Podcast on “Political Trust in Times of Covid-19”, Michelle Grattan and Mark Evans explore the lessons that can be drawn from the management of Covid-19 for the recovery process with the ABC’s Norman Swan and Mark Kenny from the Australian Studies Institute at the Australian National University. The discussion draws on the very latest findings from a comparative survey conducted by Democracy 2025 and Trustgov in May and June in Australia, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States on political trust and democracy in times of Coronavirus. The survey investigates whether public attitudes towards democratic institutions and practices have changed during the pandemic. We also asked questions on compliance and resilience issues and whether the way we do democracy in Australia might change post Covid-19. We observe that Australia can be considered a global leader in its response to the pandemic and assess whether the highest levels of public trust in fe

Jane Halton, who formerly headed the federal health and finance departments, is chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness. CEPI, founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is at the forefront of the international search for a COVID-19 vaccine. She is also a member of the Morrison government's National COVID-19 Coordination Commission, which liaises with business and advises government on how to mitigate the economic and social impacts of the pandemic. Currently she's undertaking a nationwide review of the hotel quarantine system. Halton, who when in the public service took part in a government pandemic rehearsal, says Australia was relatively ready. But she says that inevitably, when there's a review in the wake of COVID-19, there'll be a lot to learn from this experience. "Just like we've learnt from H1N1...just like we've learned from SARS. "But in the short term, the systems stood up capacity really quickly, which is great." On the reality of vaccine being developed, while it might not be s

Former Liberal Minister Christopher Pyne attracted critics for his political front. But he always had plenty of friends and networks, enabling him often to be a player, if not always a "fixer". After his election to the South Australian seat of Sturt at age 25, he went on to hold senior portfolios, notably education and defence, and to stride the parliamentary stage as Leader of the House of Representatives. In his memoir, The Insider, the former politician provides his take, humorous and candid, on a tumultuous 26 parliamentary years. In this podcast, Pyne talks about life after politics, and stories from the 'Canberra bubble'. "I don't miss politics at all - because I left happy, and I wanted to go. "So I'm not one of these politicians that was dragged kicking and screaming. I left when people wanted me to stay, which is a great rarity." Pyne is ultra candid about his ambition to be prime minister: "I think when you're 15, and you decided you want to be a member of the House of Representatives, you kind of

With three months before JobSeeker is due to end and calls for billions of dollars in extra spending, there is a growing debate about how Australia’s post-coronavirus economy will actually look. While Scott Morrison has said Australia will need to lift economic growth by “more than one percentage point above trend” through to 2025, a 22-economist panel  hosted by The Conversation forecast a bleaker result. Growth one percentage point above trend would average almost 4% per year. The Conversation’s economic panel forecast an annual growth averaging 2.4% over the next four years, much less than the long-term trend. In this podcast, Michelle Grattan discusses the economic pathway ahead with two economists featured on the panel: Professor of Economics at the UNSW Business School Richard Holden, and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Australian National University Warwick McKibbin. McKibbin argues for a major change to the national cabinet. “I think it would be very useful if the leader of the opposit

On July 4, the voters of Eden-Monaro will give their judgment on the performances of Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese. The seat is held by Labor on a margin of just under 1%. Labor is campaigning hard on JobKeeper ending in late September, while the Liberals are hoping the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis will outweigh Scott Morrison’s poor conduct during the bushfires. In this podcast, Michelle Grattan discusses the byelection campaign with the main candidates, Labor’s Kristy McBain and Liberal Fiona Kotvojs. McBain: “I think everybody’s sick of old politics … this idea that you govern for only the people that vote for you. When you’re elected, you’re elected to represent everybody, whether they agree with you or not. You should be hearing them out, and I want to make sure that people in Eden-Monaro have a strong fair voice in Canberra for them.” Kotvojs: “There [are] two key issues: one is about recovering after fires and after COVID, and the other is in terms of rebuilding our economy. So

After its calls for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, Australia has found itself targeted by China with sharp rhetoric and trade retaliation. In this podcast, we talk with two prominent China experts about China's ambitions and the Australia-China relationship. Clive Hamilton, from Charles Sturt University, has just coauthored, with Marieke Ohlberg, Hidden Hand. The book probes the Chinese Communist Party's ever-expanding presence on the international stage."From Beijing's perspective, they see themselves not in a new Cold War, but still in the old Cold War," Hamilton says. Richard McGregor, who reported from China for many years, last year published Xi Jinping: The Backlash. McGregor argues for a rather different "tone" in Australia's dealing with China. "We always seem to want to bring on a fight with China, and that ignores the economic equities we have in the relationship. We don't want to give them any excuse to unfairly punish us."    

Conversation-Democracy 2025 Podcast on “Political Trust in Times of COVID-19” produced by ContentGroup A week ago, the British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced that the number of people killed by the coronavirus in the United Kingdom stood at 32,313, the second highest death toll in the world. Health experts believe that the real figure is likely to be closer to 50,000. The number of deaths from COVID-19 in Australia currently stand at 103. Critics have accused a “complacent” British government of “massively underestimating” the gravity of the coronavirus crisis. The prominent Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the situation in the UK was “like a nightmare from which you cannot awake, but in which you landed because of your own fault or stupidity”. London correspondent Christoph Meyer writes, Britain has emerged as Europe’s “problem child” of the COVID-19 crisis. Although international comparisons of COVID-19 death tolls, are methodologically problematic and morally bankrupt, there ca

Pat Turner, for decades a strong Aboriginal voice, is the lead convenor of the Coalition of Peaks, which brings together about 50 indigenous community peak organisations. In this role she is part of the negotiations for a new agreement on Closing the Gap targets. Unlike the original Rudd government targets, the refreshed Closing the Gap agreement, soon to be finalised, will set out targets for progress on justice and housing. But the issue is, how much progress should be the aim? “We want to push the percentages of achievement much higher, but we are in a consensus decision-making process with governments … what the targets will reflect is what the governments themselves are prepared to commit to,” Turner says. The Australian Black Lives Matter marches have focused attention on the very high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal people, often for trivial matters. In this podcast Turner canvasses both causes and solutions, advocating major changes to the justice system. She points to “huge issues with drug and

Perhaps at no point in Australia’s history has the demand for real-time figures been stronger than during the coronavirus crisis. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has stepped up its efforts to get data fast, to help inform the government’s COVID-19 decision-making. David Gruen, the Australian Statistician and ABS head, in this podcast tells how the bureau has used small, quick surveys to mine timely data from businesses and households. Some of the more interesting findings concern household stresses felt during the crisis. Some 28% of women reported feeling lonely, compared to 16% of men. “Overall, only about a fifth of people said they were lonely, but that was the most common of the stressors,” Gruen says. ABS survey results also showed 75% of parents kept their children home from school. “Women were almost three times as likely to have stayed at home to take care of their children on their own, than men.” “About 15% of parents said that a lack of access to a stable internet connection was impeding their