AMY:

Anthony Albanese, he started his campaign in Peter Dutton's seat of Dickson, which was absolutely a message to the opposition leader that Labor is coming for him, that they're not worried about him. It's very messy girl politics, which I think quite a few people appreciated.

RUBY:

As the Prime Minister kicked off his election campaign, chief political analyst at the Australia Institute, Amy Remeikis, was watching. And as she heard Albanese announce he’d crack down on the supermarkets, and the opposition leader Peter Dutton talk about petrol prices, she was frustrated.

AMY:

Both political parties are focusing on the here and now, neither are dealing with any of the wider, existential questions that Australians are grappling with. So they have narrowed the parameters of the campaign to basically just a cost of living crisis, an individual desire to be able to feed your family, afford housing, and get by in life. And while they are very important – of course, standard of living is exceptionally important – I think that most Australians are quite hungry for political leaders to react to what they are seeing, which is, yes, their own individual situations, but also just what is happening in the world because it's quite scary

RUBY:

From climate change to Australia’s alliances, Amy says our leaders are failing to talk about the things that will impact us for generations. And voters are noticing.

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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

Today, Amy Remeikis on the big questions we should be asking our politicians right now and what happens if we fail to.

It’s Tuesday, April 1.

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RUBY:

Amy, the last election in 2022 was the climate election. We had Labor, the Teals and, of course, the Greens explicitly campaigning on the promise of addressing the climate crisis. The crisis is not fixed. So why do you think it is that we're not hearing about it now as we head into another election?

AMY:

I think partly we're not hearing about it because, like, neither political party has a good message to tell here. The Coalition don't have a climate policy at all that they can speak to.

They've recently come out with a new gas policy.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Starting from the end of this calendar year, we have the ability to bring a lot of gas into the system so we can set that downward pressure not just on gas but electricity prices as well.”

AMY:

They've got this fantasy that nuclear is going to come along and solve everything, but we all know that that is not true. On any measure that you want to measure it. So the Coalition don't have a story to tell there. Labor have a slightly better story, but they also don't have a great one. So Labor is still relying on fossil fuels that also includes opening up new gas fields. They're already starting the exploration of those.

And so I think that it pays for the political parties, the major political parties, not to talk about climate change because they don't actually have any story to tell. But I still think that it is a pretty big issue for a lot of Australians. We are seeing worsening impacts of climate change. We're still dealing with the impacts of cyclone Alfred in Queensland. There is a massive flooding in southwest Queensland as we speak which is having a huge impact on graziers. We're talking about resilience, but we're spending way more money in disaster response than we are preparing communities for what is coming. But our politicians don't want to respond because it doesn't actually play for the political leaders to talk about it because then they'd have to come up with the reasons as to why they're not acting on it.

RUBY:

I wonder, though, what your thoughts are on which way around this is. Is it the case that politicians are responding to what they think voters want, which is this kind of focus on cost of living and their personal situations.

AMY:

Yeah, I mean, look, it's a tricky one, right, because when you speak to party strategists, they're talking about the focus groups where everyone is talking about inflation and their impact and that's from, you know, the inner city seats where you might have people complaining that they can only afford to go on a domestic holiday this year instead of an international one, all the way down to the more crucial issues with inflation, which is people not being able to afford housing, food on the table, looking at having to take extra jobs in order to maintain a standard of living that previous generations took for granted. So obviously cost of living is overwhelmingly, individually what everybody is focusing on.

But at the same time, that doesn't mean that voters are not focusing on these giant existential issues which are coming for Australia. Everyone can see the worsening impacts of climate. Everyone can see that the geopolitical situation is exceptionally unstable. Everyone can see that, you know, there is a shift across a lot of our allied nations towards more authoritarian and far-right policies, which are going to have impacts on Australia, even us, all the way down here on the other end of the world. And if you don't have politicians respond to that, you're just going to see more voters become disenfranchised with their institutions.

RUBY:

Well, where is the conversation about that? We’ve seen, just last week, one of the most significant security breaches in memory. A journalist was let into a group chat where senior US officials, including the Vice President JD Vance, were organising strikes on Houthi targets. So, what are the broader implications of this moment for Australia?

AMY:

The broader implications is that Australia cannot trust the United States with its information. We can not trust the United States with the intelligence that we pump through it as a member of the five eyes network. There is so many security implications to this breach because this is the one that we know about, because the journalist wrote about it. You know, who knows what other, you know, foreign actors may have access to American information because we've seen this US administration already start to cosy up more to Russia than previous administrations. And, you know, Russia is not an ally of Australia. So this is huge, not just in the security world, but in terms of how Australia treats its relationship with the United States.

And so far, we're not actually seeing any sort of response from our leaders where we're going, hey, we need to start actually questioning this. We need to actually start being aware of what is happening with this shift because this is not normal. We have the Albanese Labor Party saying, hey, we think the relationship can withstand, you know, different leaders. And then we have Peter Dutton's Coalition saying, actually, we think we can get along better with Donald Trump than Labor can. And I don't think that that's what a lot of Australians are thinking that they want from their leaders at this point in time.

RUBY:

Coming up after the break - how Dutton and Albanese should be talking about Trump.

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RUBY:

How do you think that Dutton and Albanese could have this conversation about how to reposition Australia now that the United States is no longer a reliable ally? How could they have that conversation without putting Australian industry in peril?

AMY:

Well, I mean, we often phrase this about, like, not annoying America, not putting our industry in peril because of the connections to America. And then you look at what Canada, which is much closer geographically to America, which has much stronger trade ties – I think there was about 800 billion that went between the two nations in trade – that are absolutely muscling up to the United States. I mean, the new Prime Minister Mark Carney, he basically refused to take Donald Trump's call because he just said, well, Donald Trump is not an ally at the moment.

Audio excerpt — Mark Carney:

“The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations, is over.”

AMY:

And literally came out and spoke to the Canadian people.

Audio excerpt — Mark Carney:

“But what exactly the United States does next is unclear but what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency, we have power.”

AMY:

Since then, Donald Trump has been quite conciliatory to Canada and has promised to open up dialogue over the tariffs and things like that. Australia is not in a position to do as much as Canada has, particularly when it comes to trade, and that is because we're in a trade deficit with the United States. But that doesn't mean that there are not other markets that would take Australian products. And there are so many other nations that need what Australia has. Australia is just kind of stuck in this, oh, it's the United States or nobody mentality, when that's not true. We are in a strategic relationship with the United States through the AUKUS deal, which basically locks us in to America’s, you know, military plans. We're basically just capitulating and just saying, please, America, don't be mad at us. And I do not think that is the way that you move forward in this geopolitical space.

RUBY:

And there’s another factor here, Amy, and that is the media and their responsibility to hold politicians to account. But what we’ve been seeing over the past few weeks is politicians engaging less with journalists and more with influencers and online content creators. Labor even flew podcasters to Canberra to be in the budget lockup. So, tell me what the thinking is here and whether this will have an impact

AMY:

Yeah, the influences and content creators and new media being in the budget lockup isn't actually new. They also did it last year. It's just nobody was paying attention because we weren't, you know, in an election campaign then and, of course, the Trump election turbocharged everything we think we know about new media because Trump didn't pay any attention to legacy media and just focused on podcasts, online influences and those in the new media space. But we're also seeing that shift in Australia and have for some time where we have, you know, new media outlets emerging and they're attracting an audience. And that's why politicians are going to them. Politicians aren't going to them to be cool or to be ahead of the curve. Politicians go where the audience is and, you know, these new media voices that we're seeing emerging, be it on social media or podcasts, they are winning an audience, particularly of younger people, so people under 40, and they are picking up on that trend where people are not going to legacy media anymore. And so, of course, we're all freaking out about it because it's chang but it's still serving an audience.

RUBY:

Sure, but the counterpoint here, I suppose, is that an influencer might not come to a political interview with the same critical lens as a journalist. They might not hold a party leader to account in the same way.

AMY:

Well, I would say that, you know, we've seen plenty of interviews and legacy media where you could say exactly the same thing. You could turn on 2GB and not see, you know, a political leader being held to account. You can turn to Sky News and not see a political leader being held to account. You can turn on the ABC and perhaps see things that, you know, look like someone's being held to account, but not necessarily are, might be somebody else framing the talking points. That's not to say that media doesn't have a role and that critical thinking is not very important, but I think the skepticism that is coming to legacy media is coming because audiences don't feel that they are holding political leaders to account.

I think people at least find it a little refreshing that they know the position that the interviewer is starting from in those cases. Whereas, in legacy media, we're all still pretending that none of us have biases or thoughts outside of that one particular interview.

RUBY:

Amy, thank you so much for your time.

AMY:

Thank you for having me.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today...

Australian authorities are monitoring a Chinese spy ship sitting off the coast in the Great Australian Bight, Anthony Albanese has confirmed.

The Prime Minister said he’d “prefer that it wasn’t there” but that it will continue to be monitored as it returns towards China.

The research vessel is capable of exploring depths of up to 10,000m and is thought to be used for intelligence gathering and scientific research.

And,

Donald Trump will try to seek a third term as president of the United States, despite the constitution explicitly stating that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

In an interview with NBC News, President Trump said he's “not joking” about the plan and says there are methods to make it happen without stating what they are.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. Thanks for listening.

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