Politics with Michelle Grattan
News:Politics
As election year opens, Michelle Grattan speaks with Tanya Plibersek, Labor’s spokeswoman on education and women, about the opposition’s agenda in these two critical areas.
Violence against women is one of our society’s most pressing and intractable issues, and front and centre for Plibersek, who says there is a way to do better.
“We do know so much about what we can do to reduce risks of violence in interpersonal relationships. And of course, it starts with our youngest Australians,” she says. We “need to rely much more on parents to model healthy relationships in the home.”
“It disturbs me that the rates … of domestic violence don’t seem to be coming down and in fact, one of the few areas of crime where statistics continue to go up are areas like sexual assault. So we need to do better at prevention. We need to do better at policing and in our justice system.”
Despite these negatives, Plibersek sees last year’s March4Justice and increased public and media awareness as signs “things are changing, that our society is changing in a way that is, I hope, unstoppable.”
On education, Plibersek talks through the detail of Anthony Albanese’s announcement of $440 million for schools for improvements such as better ventilation and also for mental health and wellbeing initiatives for kids, so hard hit during the pandemic.
As university fees are set to rise for many students this year, Plibersek has said that under a Labor government Australians can expect “a commitment to a fundamental overhaul of our university sector”.
She says she wants to “make sure that every young Australian who is prepared to work hard and study hard can get a place at university and that no one’s discouraged because of the fees”. But although highly critical of the government’s controversial new fees structure Plibersek cannot give a commitment a Labor government would change it quickly. That would need to be worked through with the universities, she says.
Trust, democracy and COVID-19: A British perspective
Pat Turner on Closing the Justice Gap
Statistician David Gruen and the race for real-time pandemic data
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on saving Australia’s tourism and construction industries
Jim Chalmers on JobKeeper’s flaws and the Eden-Monaro byelection
Democracy 2025 - The role of the APS in a post COVID-19 world with Michelle Grattan, Mark Evans, Peter Shergold, and Renée Leon
Paul Kelly on the risk of a COVID-19 second-wave
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Nev Power on the role of business in a post-coronavirus world
Katy Gallagher on the senate's coronavirus watchdog
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his autobiography, ‘A Bigger Picture
MPs Tim Watts, Fiona Martin, Clare O'Neil and Helen Haines discuss serving their electorates during the coronavirus crisis
Democracy 2025 - How does Australia compare: what makes a leading democracy? With Michelle Grattan, Mark Evans and Ian Chubb
Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty on the coronavirus crisis and the timeline for a vaccine
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy on COVID-19
Keith Pitt on the Murray-Darling Basin, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, and Nuclear Power
Mark Butler on Labor’s 2050 carbon neutral target
Phil Honeywood on the coronavirus challenge for universities
Adam Bandt on Greens' hopes for future power sharing
Michael McCormack moves on from his near-death experience
Mathias Cormann and Jim Chalmers on the mid-year budget update
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free