Bill Shorten and Christopher Pyne dissect the election outcome | 7.30

Summary

In a candid post-election analysis, Bill Shorten and Christopher Pyne reflect on the surprising scale of Labor's victory and the shortcomings of the Coalition's campaign. Shorten praises Anthony Albanzy's stellar campaigning and criticizes the Coalition's odd policy choices, while Pyne acknowledges the Coalition's failure to connect with voters and the bungled economic and defense messaging. Both agree that the Liberal Party needs to reevaluate its approach to regain public trust and appeal to a broader spectrum of voters, emphasizing the necessity to move closer to the center rather than pushing extreme agendas.

Highlights

• Shorten credits Albanzy and Labor's campaign director for a well-executed campaign. 🌟
• Pyne admits the Coalition ran its worst campaign since 1943. 📉
• Disconnection with modern voter needs is a major criticism from both sides. 🚫
• Pyne acknowledges the failure to effectively communicate defense and economic policies. 💬
• Shorten humorously suggests 'Time for Pyne' as a new leader slogan for the Liberals. 😂

Key Takeaways

• Anthony Albanzy's effective campaign strategy was key to Labor's unexpected victory. 🎯
• The Coalition's disastrous campaign was marred by poor policy choices and lack of clarity. 🤯
• The Liberal Party needs a major overhaul to connect better with modern Australian voters. 🔄
• Christopher Pyne highlights the importance of appealing to the center to win elections. 🏆
• Both Shorten and Pyne agree on the need for the Liberal Party to re-engage with diverse communities, particularly immigrants and minority groups. 🌏

Overview

The aftermath of the election sees Bill Shorten and Christopher Pyne dissecting what went wrong for the Liberal Party. Shorten paints a picture of a highly effective Labor campaign, spearheaded by Anthony Albanzy, which cleverly capitalized on the Coalition's glaring missteps. He humorously jabs at Pyne with friendly banter, indicating just how poorly the opposition's campaign was handled.

Christopher Pyne, donning 'sackcloth and ashes,' quite literally agrees that the campaign left much to be desired. He reflects on the Coalition's outdated strategies and failure to address key voter concerns, particularly around the economy and defense. Pyne's self-reflection hints at a broader issue within the Liberal Party, urging a return to the center to meet voters where they currently stand.

Both political veterans agree that the future for the Liberal Party demands a shift towards inclusivity and addressing modern societal issues. Shorten jokes about Pyne's return, but the message is clear: without realigning to address the needs of a changing Australian demographic, the Liberals may continue to falter in upcoming elections. Their playful yet serious discussion underscores a critical juncture in Australian politics.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Election Outcome Discussion The chapter discusses the unexpected election victory led by Anthony Albanzy and orchestrated by Paul Ericson, the Labour campaign director. The conversation highlights the strategic excellence and timely execution by the Labour party. In contrast, it criticizes Peter Dutton and the coalition for conducting what is described as the worst campaign in federal history.
• 03:00 - 09:00: Campaign Mistakes and Strategies This chapter discusses the mistakes and strategies of federal election campaigns, with a focus on a particularly poor result for the non-Labor side in a recent election. The campaign is characterized as possibly the worst ever, with critical comments on the policies and leadership. The transcript also highlights how undecided voters collectively favored the Labour Party in the concluding days of the campaign, leading to the non-Labor's worst outcome since 1943.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Liberal Party's Future and Leadership The chapter discusses the Liberal Party's performance in the recent elections, noting that they secured about a third of the seats in the House of Representatives. The campaign was perceived as lacking, failing to draw people in, and as a result, was not as successful as hoped. The speaker reflects on strategic missteps, including policy decisions that may have alienated voters, such as the controversial work from home policy and the dismissal of 41,000 workers. The emphasis is on the need for more inclusive strategies to win elections in the future.

Bill Shorten and Christopher Pyne dissect the election outcome | 7.30 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Bill Shorton, Christopher Pine, welcome back. Thank you. Great to be here. Bill Shorton, to you first. Almost no one predicted a win on this scale. What happened? I think Anthony Albanzy ran the campaign of his life and Paul Ericson, the Labour campaign director, was just on top of his game at the right time. But also, I think that Peter Dutton and the coalition conclusively ran the worst campaign ever in federal history in the
• 00:30 - 01:00 history of federal elections. They were a shocker. Christopher Pine, I think I better bring you there um decked out as you are in sackcloth and ashes. Was it was it the worst campaign ever or was it the policies? Was it the leader? What was it? Well, the undecideds obviously all broke uh as a group for the Labour Party in the last few days or the last week of the campaign. Uh it was the worst result since 1943 for the non-Labor side of politics. We've never held less than a
• 01:00 - 01:30 third of the seats in the House of Representatives and the campaign despite all the uh my best efforts to uh paint it in the positive light over the previous five weeks. Uh now I think the election's over. I can say I think it the campaign itself left a lot to be desired. Uh you don't win elections by pushing people away. Uh you win elections by bringing people to you. And I think things like the work from home policy, um the the sacking of 41,000
• 01:30 - 02:00 public servants. These were all kind of bizarre announcements that obviously resonated very poorly in the in the electorate. Just staying with you Christopher, how do you get a campaign with such what look like now obvious mistakes in them? Look, it's a very good question. Uh I mean the poll our polling was obviously completely off the beam because I was talking to people in the last week of the campaign and and 10 days before who gave me completely different polling results than what
• 02:00 - 02:30 happened on election night. Now maybe it was because of the undecideds breaking. I'm sure that's what the pollsters will say. But I think the Liberal Party has a lot of work to do uh on the postmortem uh for this election campaign itself. Quite apart from the fact that they have to learn again how to be the party of aspiration because voters turned away from us in huge numbers. Now, Bill Shorton, I I'm not sure that I'm not sure it's exactly right that all the undecideds broke for Labor and that's
• 02:30 - 03:00 what did it. watching has such a seasoned experience campaigner yourself. What were you seeing? First of all, I just need to do a little welfare check on Chris. So, I'm just sending you This is a little first aid kit. I just want to make sure you're okay, Chris. I'm okay. Good on you. I I hope you would be. Um I was going to say I've been through worse, but I'm not sure I have, actually. No, I don't think you have. No. Uh no. Anyway, um in all
• 03:00 - 03:30 seriousness, I couldn't understand last year when the coalition came out against the hex debt reduction for people who've got university degrees, they just wrote off votes there. They just they just said we didn't want you. It just it was just and I also with the nuclear policy, if you really believe it, they didn't back it in. And know rightly or wrongly when I took some tax reforms to 2019 you got to back it in because if you don't even look like you believe it and the
• 03:30 - 04:00 critics are saying it's a bad idea. So they were laying some of the seeds and whilst you know there was a lot of economic hardship out there with families and mortgages. I think I always had this nagging concern even when I was in parliament that the coalition was just hoping to ride a wave of grievance but they weren't doing any of their own work. They rolled out their policies so late. I mean, they said they wanted to go to 3% of GDP on defense. Just they just sort of issued that one out, you know, like as a little farewell gift as you're leaving the party, like a bit of
• 04:00 - 04:30 birthday cake for the kids when they're going home. Uh, Christopher Pine, can I bring you in on the birthday cake? Obviously, a former defense defense minister yourself, when you see a giant policy with a couple of flimsy pages and not much detail, how did you respond to that? I think the two uh most important um positives that the coalition always beats labor on are national security and the economy. Uh I think on the economy uh we I quite correctly identified cost of living as the grievance but as I said
• 04:30 - 05:00 weeks ago the public then say and what are you going to do about it? So that we didn't actually make the second part of that um argument as well as we needed to do. And on defense, uh I I'm all in favor of increasing spending on defense by $21 billion. But we needed to be explaining to people what we were going to spend it on and we should have been doing that five weeks ago, not 10 days ago. And I these obviously these things
• 05:00 - 05:30 in hindsight were we didn't say them at the time but these are obvious clangers that uh we didn't that the Liberal party dropped and the public reacted accordingly and they've sent us a very important message and if the Liberal Party doesn't learn that message it'll happen again. Was it a series of uh campaign clangers as you describe them or a failure to appeal to a broad sway of Australian voters? I know campaign clangers are only a symptom of a much more deeper malaise which is that the
• 05:30 - 06:00 Liberal Party needs to learn again that you win elections by attacking to the center center right in our case center left in Labour's case but you can't make the voters move to you on the political spectrum you actually have to fish where the fishes are there's no point in saying to the voters you're wrong about that you need to move to the right or in the case of the left you need to move to the left because they say we don't actually and we're not going to. So the Liberal pay needs to understand that if
• 06:00 - 06:30 they're going to win elections, they have to say and do things that the public want. Now um Bill Shorton, just before we move on to what what the what the future looks like, um you've obviously been through a lot of campaigns. You said before you were waiting to see is this the week the Liberals get their act together, but just against all the campaigns you've seen, where does this one sit from the Liberal side? Uh, listen, I I'm not I I obviously I've got my values and and you know, I the labor movement's part of who
• 06:30 - 07:00 I am, but objectively it was a really poor campaign. There were, you know, the technical things. I think their ad campaign, their TV ads were pretty shyenhousen. Uh, I think uh their message never became clear. But I think it goes to that deeper malaise. the Liberal Party has sort of perched itself out on a sort of a right-wing branch. Uh if you're an immigrant, a lot of immigrants said to me they don't really think that the Liberal Party wants them here. If you're a public servant,
• 07:00 - 07:30 clearly you're on a hit list. Uh if you're a woman working part-time, trying to balance the budget, work from home, well, they didn't want you. And if you're born after 1981, there was nothing for young people in their in their policies. So the Liberal Party I I say is a bit to be honest they're out of touch. Uh when you sit in the parliament and you see them they're like a rank of gray suits just bloss at the moment thinks diversity is wearing a different colored tie quite
• 07:30 - 08:00 literally. Um no I think the Liberals need to tack to the center. Uh and I think Anthony Albani has got Labor as a center party. Uh and congratulations to him. His campaign was good to some extent. The poorness of the Liberal campaigns masking the success and the sensible messaging of the Labor campaign. It took two things to win. Christopher Pine, what is the way back? Have you been too far to the right? Uh well, the way back is to uh get in
• 08:00 - 08:30 touch with the Australian people and understand that um postco Australia is a very different place. uh and we have different working arrangements, different technologies, different expectations, uh different sense of community and that you win elections by putting together alliances of like-minded people. The only group that Bill left out of the people that we seem to be targeting was the Chinese community who at least a million voters if not more. And while we
• 08:30 - 09:00 weren't racist about Chinese people, uh certainly uh you know, you cast we cast a suspicion over Chinese or they felt that we were casting a suspicion over Chinese people because of uh comments about the mainland China because the People's Republic of China and I don't disagree about a lot of the things that were said about China versus the United States and the challenge of China to the US. But there's a way of saying things that people will agree with and there's
• 09:00 - 09:30 a way of saying things that make people feel like we're not for you. And you know, public servants is a good example, but the just the Chinese community, so seats like banks and Chisum, they were just pushed out of our reach. Christopher Pine, who's the right person to lead the Liberals out of the wilderness? Well, I'm talking to my former colleagues, uh, Sarah, as you can imagine, about, uh, what they think and what I think, but I'm not going to give them a public, uh, lecture. That that will that will only push votes away from
• 09:30 - 10:00 the person that I think is the best to lead the party now. And well, I think it Chris, you should come back. I just think, you know, I think it's time for pine. Time for pine. Time for pine. Well, I wish I had a dollar for everybody who told me that I should come back, Bill, but I think once you've left, you've left for good. That's exactly right, my friend. I'm I'm sticking with Time for Pine. Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for taking us through the wash up, and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. See you, mate. Bye. See you.