Politics with Michelle Grattan
News:Politics
Every election is unique, but each also presents comparisons and contrasts with elections past.
In this podcast, Australian National University history professor Frank Bongiorno gives his insights into the current battle but also takes the long views of campaigns.
Bongiorno talks about the role of leaders in what’s often dubbed the “presidential” election age (“a kind of proxy for judgements about policy”) and how Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese are presenting themselves.
The debate on wages and inflation has overtones of the arguments in the 1970s and 1980s, but “sort of minus the policy”.
This was supposed to be a “khaki” election, but the khaki has faded during the campaign, perhaps unsurprisingly. Most often, Australians are solidly focused on domestic issues when they vote.
The “teals” have been a special feature of this campaign. But are they a new version of other breakaways, like the Australian Democrats of old?
The rise of voter disillusionment is a feature of recent elections, as is the detachment of voters from the major parties. Not so long ago, about seven in ten voters voted at each election the same way as they had voted throughout their lives, Bongiorno says, based on the ANU’s Australian Election Study. But now it is just under four in ten. “That means there’s a growing number of voters whose support is biddable, and the independents and minor parties are benefiting from that kind of loosening of the hold of the major parties over the voters.”
Barnaby Joyce on net zero 2050, a coal-fired power station – and how resources is (sort of) in cabinet
Word from the Hill: Julia Banks and international travel caps
Jacinta Price's parliamentary agenda
Word from The Hill: the return to lockdown
Sussan Ley and Terri Butler on the Great Barrier Reef being 'in danger'
Word from The Hill: Australia's new Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, climate policy and UNESCO
Acting PM Michael McCormack on net zero 2050 and prospects for a new coal-fired power station
Word from The Hill: the Biloela Tamil family, G7 and the upcoming parliamentary fortnight
Rex Patrick on Freedom of Information and Australia's submarines
Word from The Hill
Mark Butler on the vaccine rollout and democracy in the Labor Party
Katy Gallagher on the battle to hold the government to account
Richard Colbeck on aged care and the Olympics
Simon Birmingham and Jim Chalmers on a big spending budget
what should the budget do for women? Jennifer Westacott (BCA) and Michele O'Neil (ACTU)
former ASIO head David Irvine on the cyber threats Australia faces
military ‘watch-dog’ Neil James on Afghanistan, China, and Peter Dutton
Matt Canavan on Holgate, Di Bartolomeo, and John Andersen
Stephen Duckett on what's gone wrong with the rollout
Linda Burney on the treatment of Indigenous Women
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