Do you think that it actually will be able to hold on to a respectable number of seats here and do what Anthony is talking about there and be ready for the next one?

Well, as I said, Carol has lifted their primary vote a little bit.

So I think they were cruising toward an absolute disaster under the previous Premier.

And commentary, yeah, deservedly so.

And Carol has taken some... good steps toward trying to get – trying to – the big problem that Labor MPs were talking about before Jacinda Allen was removed was they'd go around door knocking to try and talk about all this great infrastructure they were building and people were saying, well, you know, it's rotten.

You're all corrupt.

They couldn't talk about their achievements.

Bernard, what's going on with this messaging here?

What is going on there? What's the relationship between these two different data points and why are we seeing maybe a deviation of that pattern now?

So the Lowy Institute's been doing a pretty comprehensive survey of political and economic and social attitudes for some time now.

So we can track how things like what's the attitude toward migration? Is it too high? Is it too low? The book was written using the 2025 data.

Since then, the 2026 data has come out and it shows basically the same thing, which is that the attitude that migration is too high tends to be held by older people.

It tends to be held by people in regional Australia, and it tends to be held by people with lower levels of educational outcome.

That kind of points you to What's driving this and the extent to which cultural rather than economic factors are driving this? That's not to say that younger cohorts of people or people in metropolitan areas don't also think that immigration is too high, but they consistently do so at levels significantly lower than older people and people in regional areas.

And if you go further back, as I've done in the book, and look at other sources of information about attitudes toward immigration, it's one of those questions that pollsters have actually regularly asked going back to the 1970s.

Why does that matter to this question of how much immigration is quote unquote good for Australia?

the logic of that will change Australian politics? Well,

that's what drives investment decisions, ultimately.

Now, it's quite possible a government could get in that simply scraps all investments funding of any kind or all support of any kind for renewables.

And that will mean prices will go up.

I mean, we are starting to see the first impacts of lower prices from renewables because they cost far less to build and they run extremely cheaply because they don't need any fuel.

So the economic case, I think, is going to continue to drive that.

I think the problem that we've got around renewables, apart from the fact that we've got to build so much more...

That they saw themselves being exiled from.

... new freedoms? Did we manage to sidestep that?

We sidestepped it partly, but, but we did see something similar here, which is those neoliberal reforms did deliver in terms of higher incomes, uh, lower inflation, better economic growth, um, better standards of living.

I don't think there's any, any doubt about that.

But over time, the productivity boost faded.

Um, the, you know, economic growth dampened.

Other external economic factors began intruding, such as the financial crisis.

But corporations worked out how to manipulate the policy process, and the 1990s, in a way, was a learning curve for corporations as to how to influence policy in Australia.

And so your source of optimism that we might be able to rework this relationship is what?

Catch us up, please.

Yes.

Um, Australia might, uh, I guess along with the UK, might seem like the home of revolving leaderships.

Um, we've had relative stability at the federal level for a few years, but, um, yeah, Victoria is now the latest state to see the knifing of, uh, the incumbent leader, and that's Jacinta Allan of, uh, the Victorian Labor Party.

She, she never got elected, so Dan Andrews, who was the long-term, uh, Premier of Victoria, uh, until three years ago, he quit and then Jacinta Allan, um, uh, replaced him from the same faction of the Labor Party as Daniel Andrews.

And crucially, that faction had the, uh, very important support of the CFMEU, the Construction, amongst other things, Union, which for the last couple of years now has become a byword for corruption, uh, right across Australia, not just in, in Victoria.

But in Victoria, the central issue, uh, around the CFMEU and the organized crime elements that, uh, uh, infiltrated it and the bikie gangs that infiltrated it and the standover merchants who worked with it, um, was around what's called the Big Build.

Now, the dodgy meat and food standards in aged care and along food supply chains, what's been uncovered?

Now, like I said, those are not uncommon sentiments, but So Bernard, can we get some insight into why you are happy to take that $15 billion figure and the Watson report at face value at this point in time, I suppose?

Yeah, well, let's make an initial point in all this here, which is if this was a Liberal government and we were talking about business being accused of ripping an extra 15% off the cost of major infrastructure projects, I reckon not a single crikey reader would be complaining in the way that you have just outlined.

It wouldn't be any person saying, oh, this figure's dodgy.

They'd be saying, $15 billion, what an outrage.

They'd be getting, they'd be frothing at the mouth.

But because it's a Labor government, and because the way some crikey readers, a minority, but the way some crikey readers are just rusted on supporters of Labor, they will find anything to quibble when it comes to criticism of their party.

And this questioning of the 15 billion, or the 15% figure, to be more accurate, is basically an effort to try and desperately find any way to refute what is, you know, all the evidence of the biggest corruption scandal in Australian history.

Reveal.

When you get there, do you have to drop your phone like in a basket, or do they let you go straight in or, or like what happens w-when you get there, like at security?

So yes, you're still gonna drop your phone.

Um, what's happened in recent years since the pandemic, the pandemic killed off the great tradition of the budget lockup.

So that was when the government said, "Okay, we don't wanna, you know, spread coronavirus, so we're gonna let journalists just stay in their rooms in the press gallery, and they can look at the budget there," instead of the great tradition, which was everyone crowded into what are called the committee rooms of Parliament, which are the Senate and Reps committee rooms, which is where we all used to cram in for the lockup.

You, you know, every journalist, every jour-- You know, any, any journalist who was anyone would cram in along with, um, you know, the rest of the press gallery into these committee rooms for the budget.

Cheek by jowl, you know, it didn't matter who you were, you know, you were all jammed in together, economists and everyone else.

That's where you did the budget lockup.

Two things: When does it start, the lockup? And secondly, who is the most unexpected journo that you've had to share the desk space with?

So, so why was Anthony Albanese so quick to get behind America's strikes this week, given that, you know, there is a general consensus that it breaches international law? Um, why did he come out so strong when other leaders like some of the Europeans and Keir Starmer took a more measured approach?

I think that Anthony Albanese's strategy with Trump is keep your head down.

Don't say anything that, uh, might upset the mad king in Washington.

Keir Starmer obviously been r-reluctant to support the venture, uh, refused permission for UK military bases to be-- or air bases to be used.

That earned him a rebuke.

Trump's been teeing off on the Spanish government for, you know, very openly criticizing and, and again, refusing to allow Spanish resources to be, to be used in the conflict.

Anthony Albanese seems to be absolutely terrified of the idea that Donald Trump might say something bad about him.

Sort of character assessment stuff.

But that doesn't seem to be the argument.

Well, the argument from the national side is the Liberals can't quite get there.

They can't overhaul Labor's electoral capacity without the nationals in tow.

And that's certainly been the case.

I mean, I think it was only John Howard in 1996 who in recent times Maybe Fraser in 75, I'm not sure.

But there are very few times that Liberals win enough seats to govern in their own right.

So the Nationals have always been a small but necessary, if we like, small but necessary part of the conservative quest for power, and therefore able to exercise a disproportionate influence over the Liberal Party.

hypothetical.

But that doesn't seem to be the argument.

Well, the argument from the national side is the Liberals can't quite get there.

They can't overhaul Labor's electoral capacity without the nationals in tow.

And that's certainly been the case.

I mean, I think it was only John Howard in 1996 who in recent times Maybe Fraser in 75, I'm not sure.

But there are very few times that Liberals win enough seats to govern in their own right.

So the Nationals have always been a small but necessary, if we like, small but necessary part of the conservative quest for power and therefore able to exercise a disproportionate influence over the Liberal Party.

Would you mind just explain it to me?

This is extraordinary.

Why? Well, let's go with the average of the polls at the moment.

That's got One Nation at about 19%.

Now...

Three or four months ago, there were about... 14%.

So no matter how you slice it, it's been a substantial, that's more than a third increase in One Nation's primary vote.

From what we can tell, and looking at the demographics, some of the polls do offer that very, very important information about the demographics and the splits of different voters.

What has this told us, told the nation, about this man as a leader?

This is extraordinary.

Why? Well, let's go with the average of the polls at the moment.

That's got One Nation at about 19%.

Now...

Three or four months ago, there were about... 14%.

So no matter how you slice it, it's been a substantial, that's more than a third increase in One Nation's primary vote.

From what we can tell, and looking at the demographics, some of the polls do offer that very, very important information about the demographics and the splits of different voters.

What has this told us, told the nation, about this man as a leader?

Exactly what happens with the legislation now after this latest overhaul?

So there are still, so the, the, the elements of the bill that are still, you know, on foot basically are the gun laws, one, immigration ones, and a section to deal with hate groups, which it was strongly linked to the hate speech section that's no longer there.

But, um, uh, the gun laws section I suspect is gonna pass, probably is passed with the support of the Greens.

There'll be a split in the coalition maybe over that.

The section on migration, everyone's probably gonna be happy with that except the Greens, um, because it strengthens the government's powers to, to, to kick people out and stop people coming in, and that's been, [chuckles] that's been the broad direction of Australian migration policy now for, for, for many decades.

Uh, on the hate group section, I think there's, there, there is still a lot of concern about this.

Basically, what's proposed in the bill is that the Home Affairs minister would have the power to, or, you know, if he gets a report or she gets a report from, from the head of ASIO about a particular group, they, he can simply make membership of that group a criminal offense.

They will find their way." So basically, they're concerned that any of these proposed changes actually won't stop another terror attack.

Hugely useful for the Teals.

Absolutely.

I mean, look, if Scott Morrison was there... was the demon figure of the 2022 election who helped to get a lot of TLMPs elected.

Barnaby Joyce has, over a longer period, been a particular drag on the Liberal vote in urban seats and undoubtedly played a significant role in what's unfolded over the last decade last three elections really, to the Liberal vote in affluent metropolitan seats of the kind that it really, you know, it long took for granted and really should still be taking for granted, given the nature of the voters there.

But Barnaby Joyce has been the leering face of a set of unacceptable policies to a segment of the electorate that is strongly found in those traditional liberal seats.

So that's why I say there'd be an awful lot of liberals and ex-liberals who'd be very happy that he's moving on to possibly greener pastures because it really is hard to underestimate the extent to which he has been part of That kind of, I don't know, rogues gallery that Teal candidates have successfully portrayed as the kind of, you know, the reason to vote for them.

Barnaby Joyce, Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton, all of them featured incredibly heavily.

Bernard, what does he stand for, apart from wanting to be important and wanting to be noticed and wanting to have some sort of power and influence? Does he stand for anything other than coal and gas?

Meme-ify, that's right.

National treasure, Nicholas Gruen.

We're talking about the quality of decision making in our political system or in other terms, how the public interest and the national interest got crowded out of our society.

decision-making systems and how we can maybe, we don't want to be councils of despair, push it back into such systems.

The reason I like talking to Nicholas is I think he's thinking in this whole area of quality decision-making in democracies is just way ahead of everyone else.

And he's able to bring not just an economist's perspective, but dare I say it, a philosopher's perspective even, when an ex-historian like me is still sort of scratching around in the dust, looking at individual sort of dot points of data.

The area that I want to start in as our kind of Our example that both Nicholas and I think is highly relevant to this discussion is one that Nicholas has had some firsthand involvement in, which is the imbroglio over the new AFL stadium in Hobart.

But