 So good evening again, and welcome to the Australian National University the last panel in the vote 2016 federal election series. My name is Paul Bongiorno. I'm more a writer than a broadcast journalist these days writing for things like the Saturday paper, the New Daily Online and even the Kemper Weekly. So you probably can pick that up at any supermarket. I still dip the toe in the water broadcasting talking to Fran Kelly and various other people and Channel 10 have kindly let me Be a mentor so there you go. So that's who I still am So every Tuesday night since the election was called A&U public policy experts have been getting together to discuss the key issues of the 2016 federal election. So I'd like to introduce tonight's I'd like to introduce tonight's imminent panel adjunct professor Bob McMullen on the extreme my extreme left your extreme right John's on my extreme right, but I know he's I know he's not in fact anyway I'm in the extreme middle. There you go Back to adjunct professor Bob McMullen. He's recently joined the Crawford School of Public Policy After a long and distinguished career in the Australian Parliament including a senator for the ACT and member for Canberra and I'd like to remind you is actually the National Campaign Director for three successful federal campaigns the 1983 drovers dog election that John that Bob Hawk won and then the subsequent two elections So he's brings with him considerable expertise on campaigning He's also a member of the high-level advisory group on climate change financing Which was mobilized during the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 Then I have Dr. Jill Sheppard. She's a political scientist and Survey researcher in the Australian Center for Applied Social Research Methods here at A&U. Jill's a primary author of the A&U poll a survey of Australia's attitudes towards major issues The current research projects explore the role of ethnicity and pre-immigration background on Australian political activists and voting behavior in federal elections Then I have Dr. Andrew Hughes. He's a lecturer in marketing at the A&U College of Business and Economics Prior to his academic career Andrew worked in marketing management and strategy for some of Australia's biggest organizations in the financial industrial and service marketing sectors and then I have and What happened to my good friend, Dr. John Husson? John I know you're here Anyway over there on my right, but on everybody else's left Is Dr. John Husson. He's now a professor here at the A&U and he was a staffer for many years for the federal Liberal Party and and its leaders and himself became federal leader and he has a personal and bruising experience of a federal election campaign having led the Liberals and the Coalition in the 1993 election. Would you please welcome all of the panelists? Well look since I've been in In the print media I've been taught that you have to grab interest with the headline and the first paragraph So I thought that the first paragraph tonight I should just cut to the chase Start up this end of the panel and just get a brief overview from our panelists on how they think Saturday will play out I guess that's a nice way of saying who's going to win Dr. John Husson? Look there are two possible scenarios One is that Malcolm does pretty well. He's got to lose too many seats and people will be basically giving him I think the benefit of the doubt and that's the case On the basis that you know he came in with great expectation sure he's disappointed people But he hasn't had a fair run. Let's give him a run that sort of attitude The other the other alternative is the possibility that the independence and minor parties do actually pretty well even in the lower house I tend to the third to think the first rather than the second although the Xenophon factor is very difficult to judge in South Australia and More broadly I think in the upper house Well, you know, we've got new Senate voting rules and we've got a double dissolution Nobody has a clue how that's going to wash out. I suspect we won't get too many more greens I think we'll probably get the same sort of rub six or eight independence a lot of different persuasions probably Pauline Hanson probably Jackie Lambie probably Darren Hinch you know a Mix bag and I think we'll just go into the same sort of instability we've had for the last several years Okay, thank you. I Think Malcolm temple inch across the line. It's an interesting campaign from him He's tried around a very low emotion low response campaign all the way through and I think it's worked so far He hasn't got too far sucked into any of the labor ski campaign tactics to get him into a one-on-one fight So for that reason I think a little inch across the line But I think that as John said the bigger picture the watch on Saturday night. It's gonna be the Senate Glenn Lazarus in Queensland's done very very well, particularly in the west of the state He's got a lot of traction out there And of course Jackie Lambie and Pauline Hanson again are people to watch and the X factor in South, Australia I really have loved that part of the campaign As a marketer I hats off to him for what he's done because he's done everything right as a marketer. So even though he's a politician, so there's bit of Bit of something going on there, but Yeah, for mine. I think it'd be more interesting to watch the Senate on Saturday night and see how that plays out Okay, well I noticed today in the Fairfax papers that John Sturt and who's been a pollster for a long time looked at the 11 polls published in June and he came up with the Liberals 50.5 to Labor 49.5 Which statistically is line bore we had the essential today 51.49 Labor We had Galaxy on the weekend 50.50. So Statistically it looks like it's a deadlocked election Interestingly enough a majority of people polled in all the polls still think the Liberals will win that That Malcolm Turnbull will get along the line But as the election has gone over the number of people thinking that has shrunk the other interesting thing is Malcolm Turnbull has shrunk as well and Bill Shorten has Slowly built built some momentum whether it's enough to get him across the line is doubtful I would think that with this deadlock you'd have to Think the incumbents will make it especially as there is a lot of residual goodwill to Malcolm Turnbull Even though it is dissipating Look, I don't disagree at all Paul and I wish I had something much more You know enlightening and interesting and provocative to say, but I think John kind of hit the nail on the head that Turnbull will probably kind of creep over the line, but I think predicting this election is an absolute mugs game I want nothing to do with it and I think the Senate I mean the whole idea this is sort of the post hoc justification for the double dissolution was to clear out the Senate rebel You don't do that with a double dissolution by lowering the quota. It's going to end up an absolute dogs breakfast And then in terms of how the the polls have shaken out it's sort of, you know, 50 all or forty nine point five fifty point five I think there's no indication that that's distributed evenly across the country God knows what's going on in South Australia with Xenophon I'm a bit iffy on some of those polls that that put him at sort of 24 or 25 percent of the primary vote in the House of Reps I don't know people are that I don't know that so many people are that happy to change their vote to What is basically an unknown prospect? I know everyone knows Xenophon and he's the master marketer and Andrew and I will fight to the death about Nick Xenophon It's not marketing. It's politics and it's people but Jill behave yourself He treats people with such disrespect But look God knows Bob Well that's slightly higher authority that I'm usually allowed to quote but The the remarkable thing is that nobody does know I mean when the election was called So when Malcolm took over as prime minister everyone thought it was going to be a canter for him and it looked like it for a while but In my view since he Wimped out on the tax issue in February his polling has collapsed and His preferred prime is relative preferred prime minister position compared to bill has fallen by 28 points In four months that is almost unprecedented You'd have to be doing something pretty outrageous to lose that much, but it's really disappointment John got that right I think it's no people don't hate Malcolm or anything like that They're just really disappointed because they thought he was going to be stronger and decisive and he hasn't been And I think that's been a mistake, but I'm not sure that's going to cost him the election I think there are three possibilities because it is possible that label got over the line I think it depends what's happening in Western Australia clearly. There's a big swing on in Western Australia, but There needs to be a very big swing for it to start Picking up any seats, but once it start you're gonna remember I grew up in Perth. I'm scarred by the experience A whole lot will go all at once There's about nothing still five percent and then between five or seven eight nine percent. There's about five or six seats so It could be a big swing that achieves nothing But it doesn't have to be much bigger and there suddenly start to be a lot of seats So I wouldn't make any predictions too early in the night Because we'll be two hours into it before the West Australian count starts Which is better than it used to be I remember watching on TV in 1975 and by the time the telecast came We'd already lost in Western Australia So that was really a lot of fun, but No, I don't I don't have any serious idea who's going to win You'd have to say Malcolm would be the favorite because of incumbency And because people are not really angry with him But the Victorian experience shows that sometimes even governments people don't hate Can be defeated after one term if they are disappointing and if there's Independent activity going on and I agree that Xenophon is the interesting character Let me say about the Senate nobody will be looking at the Senate on Saturday night And It might have been the ostensible reason for calling the election but actually had nothing to do with it at all I remember being involved in calling a double dissolution election and we didn't even think about the Senate We thought can we win the House of Representatives election or not? We thought we could so we called it and we never even gave the Senate a thought And I think that's what's happened this time too Now I did forget because I got a bit confused before to do a commercial that I've been asked to do So this series has been presented in partnership with policy forum dot net Which is based here at the Crawford school of public policy policy forum dot net is the Crawford schools platform for analysis and discussion About the region's public policy challenges The podcast of tonight's panel and every panel in the series will be available At visit a and u dot edu dot au slash news and click on the 2016 federal election series banner to find out more I've got one more commercial, but I'll wait till a bit later Look just interestingly on the on the Senate. I was talking to one of My contacts up in Queensland a liberal MP and she told me that She's been on the booth for the pre polling and the amount of confusion is enormous with the Senate People are extremely confused and even though there's a safety Valve built in by by the Senate so that if if it's clear If you've only made one mistake on your ballot paper and it's clear who you wanted to vote for it'll be counted as a valid vote But the fear is that there'll be more than One mistake and that that is a worry the other interesting thing I noticed that Anthony Green Analyzing a couple of weeks ago Some of the stuff that came out on the Senate thought we could see a crossbench of nine with six greens even so And and two to three fewer LNP or liberal nationals in the Senate. So if that happens The gamble of cleaning out the stable The Malcolm might find he's got more poo in there than he counted for Anyway having having said that Having having said that let's Let's go on to brexit in broad terms I heard a very interesting conversation on radio national with with you john So maybe if you could give us your thoughts to what extent Brexit will affect or can affect the election and I guess in one sense very importantly It can affect Australia whatever whoever wins the election Just say one thing about brexit that tells you you can't believe the polls and you can't believe the betting odds And I'd apply that generally to this campaign as well I I think there is a fundamental difference and I'm and I'm just gonna apologize john, but not bugger it I'm I'm sticking to this the difference we have in Australia is that we know the denominator of who votes So we're not trying to calculate. We're not being lied to about who will vote and who won't and that that's a huge difference But I don't necessarily hold much stock in the polls either. Just go to the victorian election the Queensland election The IHP had nine seats in Queensland of 89 and one You know like it you can't judge. I don't think we can rely on them as we used to Having said that I think personally brexit's a disaster Very very badly run campaign I think And a lot of exaggeration on both sides and I noticed that the The the exit team made sort of three commitments One was to save the 350 million pounds a week that was paid to Brussels Which is nonsense to that you'd reform the immigration policy at three you'd stop about five million Refugees that would come if turkey and four african nations were added to the to the eu And now they're saying that they weren't actually promises They were opportunities and You know it's indicative. I think of what's happened in terms of impact I mean obviously the financial sector is going to be pretty badly damaged for quite some time I think the UK will go into recession if not Europe You've been struggling to avoid a triple deep recession with deflation So, you know, this is not going to help them But a lot of uncertainty in the negotiating process I mean two to seven years do exit. I suspect we negotiate trade deals And in governance arrangements and so on from our point of view It's just another layer of uncertainty in the global economy, which is Seeing growth rates downgraded pretty consistently and you know in these circumstances very low growth is not out of the question In the developed world a large part of the emerging world is already in recession And world trade fell 14 last year you want to king hit it again That's what you're doing because Europe is still the second largest economy in the world And so, you know, there are a lot of factors there that I think would do it We're ignored or downplayed in terms of what would happen, but What it says to me about what we've heard in this campaign is I don't believe any of the commitments on either side really I don't think most of them will be delivered Because I think the budgetary situation is much worse than they've been prepared to admit Have happily worked with very optimistic forecasts for growth wages And so on and you get a more realistic assessment You'd change that dramatically so the old game will be on whoever wins will stand up and say well Things were a little a lot worse than we thought they were So I'll have to have a tough budget and I guess if it's an Abbott style first budget we'll Hostile Senate. I asked what have we gained in about four years? So Bob the wisdom is that And please jump in but the wisdom is that brexit did The incumbent government government the coalition government a huge favor here It got everybody talking economics and as john just said instability and of course Malcolm Turnbull his prime minister said now is not the change to change horses has Do you agree with the with the wisdom and has labor got an answer to that that that in any way can Neutralize it. I think in in the first instance, it will be a Plus for the government. It's a question of whether it lasts. I mean, I realized when I was talking about a week but People will in the first flush say golly. This is uncertain and they're therefore more likely to support the incumbent I think But as people unpack it the underlying drivers of brexit, I think Playing out in in miniature in this election And I think that that will in the ultimately be At least an equalizing factor for the Labor Party, but whether they can get that message through between now and Saturday I've no idea. I don't think it'll be a very big factor but the most likely thing is it will be a A plus for the coalition I have to say on the polling. There's a very interesting article today by on the you gov website indicating that Not that they themselves got it wrong, but some of the other pollsters got the the result absolutely right So I don't think we should be too down on the polling But I think I agree with john's analysis of the consequences of brexit. I think it was a disastrous campaign By the kittories by the Labor Party by everybody on that side of the debate And they got a very sad result for britain for And for the world Do you know what occurs to me? General I don't want you to think of this that It's a lesson too about so-called no-brainer referendums, you know All the polling for example ahead of 1999. It was a no-brainer that we you know wanted to be a republic If you can believe Malcolm Turnbull is a no-brainer that if we have a plebiscite on on the marriage equality that that it will get up Do you think that the brexit result says anything that may or may not influence the way people will vote? I think we we all have A tendency to overestimate the progressiveness of voters everywhere Voters are incredibly inherently conservative I think and change is is I don't want to say scary because that runs down people who you know may may not like change and And paints them as sort of being timid or something else But I mean we need to be convinced to change things the status quo is not always so bad. And so I think sometimes there's Um, but we've seen dramatic. I mean what we saw in in britain was dramatic change We'd leave. Yeah, it's such an easy sell though, isn't it nationalism and and this sort of almost nativist idea That you know, we're going to hunker back down and and be our own country again I think everyone has underestimated again the conservativism of British voters who want to be go back to being british or the potency of immigration Yeah, and I think that's one of the other important things out of brixit too is looking at how the campaigns are run and And how people have looked at some of the other attributes of campaigning like nowadays and in 2016 like social media you know People overestimate the power of social media and they're over a lot upon it as an Indicator of behavior, right? So I think one of the things people assume particularly the younger voters is because they're active on social media Talking about the campaign that everyone assumed. Okay. Well, these guys get a vote To remain but it didn't happen because they didn't actually vote They just talked about voting and talked about the issue And I think that's the other thing too here in australia. We have compulsory voting, but it doesn't equal compulsory engagement Yes And so people aren't tuned into the message messages necessarily all the way through And I think that's one thing out of brexit We should take a lesson from is don't put an overaligned upon one method to indicate behavior on election day so In terms of you know, maybe how the message might play out In my head. I was thinking soon as the vote happened I thought well, here's a free kick for the coalition straight away because They haven't run a scare campaign. They've gone hardly negative at all Their advertising spell negatives only bumped up in the last four days And here's a perfect one they can run they can go well if you change right now and labor have talked about increasing deficits In the first four years. What will happen? Remember this is what happened over here. They didn't expect that to happen These consequences now hitting the economy hitting the news headlines. It's all of a sudden there's dissonance in people You know as john said, um, I think just to us before he walked in the room Post-purchase by behavior has been quite noticeable You know the way google was going um nuts with people googling what the eu was after the vote it wasn't it wasn't going nuts That was a bit of a beat-up as well. Sorry. We're Jill calm down But we're liable of falling in that trap too of saying well, you know, we've read a lot of guardian columns that say People are really regretting this but again, it's an engagement. It's not engagement You've got to it's you have to move away from that just because you're talking about something I'm just because you're on social media. Yeah, no, but I want to okay So, um, just time for another commercial break I invite you to join the twitter conversation using the hashtag capital a us capital pol ospaul and small our capital a and u Before one other point. Yes, you'll go go ahead john There's a global trend that's really worrying that's evidenced in the brexit's photo and more generally and that's Anti globalization anti free of trade anti immigration And that's you're seeing the birth of a lot of minor parties on the right and the left in europe, for example You've got trump in the u.s. You've got xenophon to some extent tapping that mood in south austria You know, that's a wiring global trend to sort of undo What we've we've gained in the last 40 or 50 years by taking a more open attitude Look before I throw it over to the floor. I do want to just briefly discuss with the panel marriage equality you might notice and This comes out in various discussions On twitter from people from the left the right patrols and all sorts If people use the term marriage equality, they're in favor of of it If they use same-sex marriage, they're generally not Even though of course they're the description of the same thing So i'm calling it marriage equality and you can make of that what what you like but andrew What uh you who have studied what motivates people and adds and all the rest of it I notice um shortened And the greens as the campaign have gone has gone on have made a bigger deal of marriage equality Um And we saw melcom tumble has Assured people that that the plebiscite will get up he um and his wife will vote for it And and and when the whole country votes for it the parliament will absolutely vote for it Then we got a warning last night from peter kredlin Who intimately knows the workings of the current parliamentary party room of the libs and the gnats Um She was warning that that this has the potential to blow up the coalition After the election now what how that plays out. I don't know What's your opinion of of marriage equality? Is it a vote changer? Is it is it proxy for something else? What do you think? Well, I think it's a it's a vote changer in the inner city seats in melbourne and sydney and even brisman You know because I think that issue matters to people in those areas And that's the whole point where you can see a change And I think this could gets back to what jill talked about before about some of these seat by seat polling figures Are very rubbery at the moment and they all change definitely for sure And that could be the the side of someone and all it has to be is three or four percent Of people in a seat like that and the and the seat changes hands It's enough to sway the preferences. So the seat I've went with your old seat. John. It won't change hands on this issue Will it Well, I mean it's a significant issue in that seat, but I don't think it's a dominant issue I think it's it could change votes depending on which way it goes I mean there's effect. It has been a pretty effective campaign running went with Well, I think an art dealer actually He wants the old malcolm back That's his campaign seeming to bring back the old malcolm. I miss malcolm The guy that stood for you know marriage equality the guy that stood for climate change and tax reform and so on And that's probably had a bit of an impact in in the seat beyond the humour of it I think That probably has captured a bit of a view the dissapointment nationally But um, you know, I don't think it's one of the top five issues for it. Let's say I was only like that I think it's a a lesser issue across the country, although in particular seat sydney and melvin as you've said I think it can make a difference. What do you think jill? I'm more dubious I just I just I doesn't cut across political allegiances in the way that something like immigration does or Well, I can only really think of immigration the moment even asylum seekers There might be people out there as john and andrew both say some of these seats again end up pretty damn tight I think so maybe there's something to it. I might be running it down but before I Ask you I was talking today to one of the executives in 10 news who's of lebanese descent And he says that labor could be in trouble in western sydney, especially in the seats where there is a high Muslim and lebanese Population on this issue because they don't like it Well, of course You shouldn't assume that the votes are all going to go one way But I don't think it's going to be a big or decisive issue in Any seat really but perhaps one or two, but I think the idea of a plebiscite is disastrous for the country It is Just a platform for homophobia and that Malcolm with all his background could say That it's not that that is not going to happen is just off with the fairies I mean it is a serious serious concern for the future of the country I think I think the plebiscite will be carried I think the The bill we carried in the parliament eventually, but it's going to be a bitter and divisive and unnecessary Conflict that I think is really really very sad. I suspect Turnbull is hoping You know furiously that the plebiscite bill doesn't get up and that he can sort of Palm this away from whence it came. It's it will be a nightmare Well, there's been a that was the warning that cridlin gave on the bolt show last night on on fox till was I wasn't watching Kremlin on the bolt show I was reported it was reported in all the papers Too young to read the news But the point is that that she and the conservative suspect that this is exactly what mel comes up to That he'll put up a bill that it'll be voted down If not in the reps depending on how the numbers go there, but certainly in the senate Then he'll say well there you are. I've given given it my best shot. We'll now put it to the parliament Anyway, that's to play out and she says if that happens, there'll be a world war three inside the coalition Does anyone have a question That gentleman just behind you Yes, I just want to take up the issue of A pretext but also apply to the Australian situation and take issue with you John even i'm a great fan of the fantastic work that you do on climate change those economic reforms Lauded by the Labor Party and the Liberal Party actually hurt a lot of people in the Australian community That's why um, we have the phenomenon of Hanson and feel feel clearly and we've had Since that period of time a growth in inequality in Australia and um We've also had this interesting situation whereby our per capita growth has actually declined relative to Scandinavian countries Which went down an entirely different economic reform path Which was much more equitable and and much fairer and that's the underlying a really powerful underlying dynamic And people's voting voting behavior in this election when i'm picking up out in the regions Speaking of there is that people are really turned off this election They're not even talking about it a great deal The officer don't trust the Labor Party or the Liberal Party And I think we're going to have a weird and wonderful night on on saturday night I think that um oak shot and winds up have got some chance of getting up Poland has indicated That that that is the case honestly and they will get up, but they'll still get quite a Substantial vote and for to Hanson will and of course in south australia Zenofon Zenofon will a lot of people out there are wanting some alternative Here's the political political status quo and we just can't go on Believing that all those economic reforms were all absolutely wonderful and fair and and good for the country Because I certainly there's a lot of Australians who don't agree with that I agree that inequality is a very significant issue in this country And it's got a lot worse to some extent compounded by the reforms At some extent not that the reforms were not done with an eye to worrying about the impact on inequality It could have been addressed in a lot of those things and it hasn't been And of course, it's easy to tap that mood and that popular sentiment that a that a zenofon Can tap for example in south australia where the state has got the highest unemployment rate It's a manufacturing sector seriously in decline You know a lot of dislocation with the cast car industry going and and so on it's easy to tap that mood But you know one of the problems of the minor parties is that they know they'll never be in government They'll never have to deliver any of this stuff And the danger is that of course they're not even constructive in there in their approach And I think personally one of the problems with the greens is they've progressively gone more and more and more extreme To make themselves marginally less relevant than they would otherwise have been And you know, you'll get a protest vote I think that's why I said there were two or two possible outcomes and just to judge the protest vote the strength of it It'll be there But I suspect in current circumstances and a feeling of not anger against Malcolm for disappointment I sort of say okay, give him a give him his chance for give him a term and see That's more likely the outcome even though the sentiments are very strong I think the problem with some of the extreme elements of that is it brings out the worst in our society And to me the Hanson brings out absolutely the worst And we've got it. You've got to find ways to deal better with that than we have done in the past I absolutely agree with uh with that. I think I've been basically in support of the open Australia policies both economically and in terms of international trade, but we do have to accept that we've We've left a lot of people behind, you know, I say there's Australia we have all sorts of divisions, but there's one which is there's 90,000 people read the financial review and there's everybody else and Well, they give a lot away but There is a danger that The people like me and John and others who share this view and I basically do not totally But basically support those open policies We talk to each other all the time And not to anybody else and that's certainly what happened in the north of the uk There's a whole lot a whole swathe of the country being totally left behind and they were totally ignored during the whole brexit campaign and they And I hold I'm also a member of the British Labor Party, but I hold it responsible That's why it failed because the British Labor Party had no guts They didn't go up and campaign in the north and say this is why you need to stay in And they took the soft option and they copped all they copped the consequences Another question or comment Malcolm Harrington the camera local. Thank you so much for these policy forums It's fabulous to have the opportunity to ask the questions Malcolm Turnbull Can you put the mic just a bit closer to your mouth? Thank you Paul has been saying that a minority government will necessarily be chaotic and dysfunctional based on recent evidence Is that always going to be the case or is that just because Tony Abbott made it so We we are In Australia incredibly lucky and incredibly Oh, I'm using some really harsh terms tonight We don't appreciate how stable our political system is So after 2010 we we asked all these baseline measures about how do you feel about the direction of the country? Are you satisfied with Australian democracy? Do you trust the parties one hung parliament and everything just fell through the floor There's no reason why a minority parliament should be chaotic or anything else In the same reason in the same way that there's no no I guess prima facie reason a Balance of power led senate or controlled senate would be chaotic, but we we get it conniptions about it We seem to trust the major parties far more than we should well, I think There's a distinction between a hung house of representatives and a house of representatives in conflict with the senate I'm a partisan so obviously I want my side to win But I don't have any hang-ups about a hung parliament. That is there's no crisis about that in the house of representatives Someone will negotiate a majority form a government and they'll get most of their legislation through It's not the same when you have different majorities in the house representatives in the senate Then you can get stagnation because you can't get anything through because the two sides are The two houses are in conflict, but I don't As a matter of principle think the idea of Nobody having a majority is particularly important. It's a I agree with The analysis that it is a particularly Australian fascination That you have to have One party in a majority all the time doesn't as I saw obviously I prefer it I'm a partisan but trying to be as objective as I can. I don't regard it as a big problem at all ironically We've actually had Minority Parliaments in the lower house for forever in a day almost in Australia with But we think of the coalition as the coalition party But but the liberals and the gnats, you know the country parties they used to be they have to sit down and sometimes they have You know quite forthright and you know tough negotiations to form A government and of course one of the interesting things that may happen This election is if the liberals lose more seats than the gnats the relativities in the coalition could change dramatically And they could And that will empower the more conservative end of the of the coalition namely the gnats Anyone else we've had lots of experience in state parliaments too of minority governments that have functioned quite effectively Okay While that's happening. I think that The gentleman was right. It was Tony Abbott very effectively defined the minority government as Chaotic and what added to the salience of that charge was the undermining of Gillard by an angry rud I think oak shot and and wins is kind of posturing didn't help either. They are with Gillard would have must have been furious Yeah, although. I mean the point is that It knows even though everyone thought that the minority government could fall any moment and Tony Abbott kept reminding us of that Bob catta for one said no no She's got she's got my vote up her sleeve in the sense. I will only vote no confidence on very strict Narrow terms, but anyway, yes Oh over there. Sorry Hi panel. Thanks for your time this evening. It's been great Do you think we need to change the way The parliament think of double dissolution It seems it was called because of the a the a b double c and that hasn't been mentioned amongst during this campaign Do you think this will help or hinder the liberals given that as a fundamental kind of mistrust and the reason this lecture was called I think it's part of the general cynicism about the two major parts of three major parties that That they seem to be basically playing games rather than governing the country And the negativity that was just referred to by Abbott Did an enormous amount of damage to the concept of good government? And I Wasn't a successful leader of the opposition, but I did see my role as being constructive When I disagreed with the government, I disagreed strongly But if I could get out in front and set the agenda and drag them towards a sensible policy outcome It was worth doing I didn't didn't please some of my colleagues, but I think it's constructive but today It's a it's a very short-term opportunistic negative game Which was heightened under Abbott hasn't improved much Haven't gone much further really they look at the policy platforms at both sides They're summarized on television the three or four dot points On a page without any detail As to how they're going to be achieved and of course one of the things we've noticed in dumbing down of this campaign It's been they both sides have stayed right away from detail even when they've had a policy that they could have defended You know, for example on climate change neither of them has been prepared to actually go into any detail in defense of their position So it's just sort of evaporated to some extent as an issue You'd wonder why the Labor Party didn't run harder on negative gearing And and so on but they've just stayed pretty much on these focus group driven messages day in day out I didn't think it was possible to run eight weeks saying jobs and growth and nothing else But it's happened. It's almost impressive. It's all but it's been all negative risk and no one's fallen Yeah, exactly very very risk averse strategy And I think I think what they want to do from day one was really the coalition anyway Run this really quiet noise quite campaign safe and steady. Oh, Malcolm's the grandpa by the way. Oh He's harmless, right? Aren't grandad's harmless. How can you hate a granddad? I mean and it's been like that since day one really really slow Not going down that path of fighting with anyone in particularly labor for that matter In fact, the campaign has been that long because I know it's got fatigue voters It's been it's been done for that reason because if you switch off there's been no engagement It's really really super hard for labor to drive engagement on their messaging And that's what it's proven to be so far that their negative stuff isn't working. They've gone three to one on negative That's a huge gamble. I mean you can say one thing but your spending reveals what your strategy is It's two to one positive for the coalition three to one neg for labor labor trying to get the traction Trying to get momentum anyway. They possibly can they're trying to get momentum anyway They can anything which works is great, but at the same time we're missing the policy discussion We need to have what did you think of the fake trading add? Um, you know what I'm the cynic here. I'm going to say um That that was a brilliant ad to get distraction away from where labor are getting momentum on medicare All of a sudden out comes the ad. It's that bad People were talking about how bad the ad was it was jill. Hey scientists Was it as bad as windy? Winging wendy. It was just as bad. Yeah, and I saw a nationals ad last night with like a proper country song Oh, hang on. Is this bob catterstall? Too soon but Andrew mays well Let our audience know that you released today some research on negative ads Can you just give us a quick synopsis of what you found? Well, just a touch on the point raised here Just you know in the audience that indeed people are just switching off negative Negative ads don't hit any arousal at all. So I did real-time tracking. I track people As I watched tv show put an ad break in as you would at home right now And then I measured the arousal to the ads in so and what I found was that negative didn't switch anyone off It switched them off and then I did a post-test study on what we call recall measures to see Okay, can you recall anything about the ad itself? And if so, what did you recall? Um, so what they recall is nothing about the negative ads at all But what they recalled was I'm gonna clean up the conversation here because some of the comments I got were pretty unfiltered Um, but they're along the lines of I'm so sick of negative advertising. I've had enough of it It doesn't do anything. I want to hear them talk about what they stand for negative doesn't do that And it was just a lot of anger about negative advertising In campaigns and remember too From day one a lot of people have had experience with it because even before you vote if you're exposed to the message Even as a kid, we're talking about 16 17 year olds. They're exposed it already. They already have a pre-existing negative attitude towards that type of Advertising that's it. Well, bob is an old count. Sorry. I'll get your comment No, bob is an old as an old campaign director Is andrew standing on its head the perceptions that the negative actually works scares the bejesus out of everybody Well, certainly what he says entirely contrary to My experience everyone always says they hate negative advertising. They always have but it's always worked That doesn't mean it's working this time. I don't know. He might be right, but the because Sadly Politics essentially a contest between fear and hope and fear is always a much more powerful message than hope That's A little bit more of a problem for my side of politics on balance. So not every day I don't mean to say that at all but on balance. That's one of the one of life's challenges, but it is Triggering reactions by raising concerns in the minds of voters is not popular But people do it not because they're stupid but because they know people don't like it, but they know it has traditionally worked You might quite be right about this election. I have no idea But in general that's what you say doesn't conform with my experience at all jill. I jumped in I jumped in on you Please give us your two bobs worth as we used to say a lot of bobs to give to There's got to be some it's got to surely andrew it's got to tap into something Underlying though because I think about like the learner later meds, right and the bunting and that was amazing Yeah, and and look, um, it's only early days when I'm doing research wise But the thing is I use psycho physiological message, right and they don't lie That's your body responding to what I'm showing you so I can ask you a question You can lie to me, but if your body won't so I did eye tracking as well. So There is no response. What that means is that you're not remembering or recalling the message Which means it isn't seen as important enough and I spent all of today doing a lot of media I did a 702 Sydney interview Earlier this morning where they ran a poll before I actually did the interview and they told me on there Hey, we'd like to know result of the poll and I nearly died thinking. Oh, here we go. This could go any way from sunday And 89 percent of people said they really had a negative advertising and again social media I'm surprised it's not a hundred. Yeah, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just means people don't like it It's not the same thing at all. Yeah, but I get what you say they don't like but then again So you can be aware of the ad but it doesn't mean it changes your behavior That's the whole point your behaviors could be changed by something else You might be aware of it like these people were and the emotions they expressed were really high I mean i'm saying some of the strongest stuff. I've seen in marketing, but um at the same time Other things I think were influencing their behavior, which is where jill comes into it a bit in the picture What you what you have to as I say, I've known nothing about what's happening in this election and have no Information so you could well be right about that But historically what if you tap into a genuine underlying concern with your negative ads you reinforce that underlying concern that's The infamous one that paul referred to called winching wendy for which I take total responsibility and apologize um worked very well uh, it was dreadful And it worked Graham morris told me bob. He was working on the libel campaign And he said that that was so Devastatingly effective, but he also said it was the um, and I forget the what's the jargon rich in frequency It was on in every ad break, you know sometimes at the top on the bottom of the ad break, you know So that's right Victim of a negative It does work. It can work. It worked very well in the early 90s. I mean I was fairly worked unknown It's interesting because I tried to get the libel party organization to run a 100 percent positive campaign It's been three years trying to argue dramatic change and significant reform And so I called a shadow cabinet meeting and made everyone vote And there was one vote for a positive campaign That was mine 100 negative and in those days they raced at a lot of time and money I think trying to discredit keating Because I was quite happy to ignore him and just focus on the positive message It worked though and gst. It worked particularly well on health in the final days of that campaign not so much gst But I think over time the credibility of negative campaigning has actually waned a bit And you know when you make extreme claims like in this election He will privatize medicare and he says no, I won't Well, you know people just say I'll just call that a draw and move on They don't bother taking it either side and I think it's lost its effectiveness over time because they've become a bit shrill and a bit extreme And I think that's probably it won't be as big a factor in this election as it's been in the past I don't share that view. I mean without saying I enjoy it The polling today said that 50 percent of Australians believe the liberals will privatize medicare There's a question over here Thanks. My question's about the last week of the campaign We had today the costumes released from the LNP And I looked at their savings and they have fought off points Savings of about 2.4 billion. I think off the top of my head and it's all about Really bashing welfare resilience And how do you think that's going to play out? Well, sadly, I don't think anybody will notice it, but I I think it is First of all, absolutely dodgy and second if it if there is 1.1 billion dollars to save In that way, it's coming from the poorest to fund Policies in support of the richest so it's going to reinforce the problem This guy over here raised right at the first instance. There's a suspicion though, Bob That it's a renouncement from the budget. I think it's just dodgy I don't think it really will happen, but if it does, it's bad and either way it was complete hand waving, right? There was about a paragraph in dot points You have a comment or a question? I just wonder whether the panel could comment on the potential role of preference deals in the election And perhaps drill down to the contest between and his name has not yet been mentioned Barnaby Joyce and Tony Windsor in that seat Jill would you like to um Lead off because before we came out. I was I was full of praise for Barnaby I look I know absolutely nothing about New England Knowing what I know of of Joyce I've had I've had friends who've worked for him and spoken so highly of him I think he must be busting a gut in his seat But Windsor's got this appeal. You were very you were full of praise for of Windsor Well, Tony Windsor is a friend of mine and I'd love to see him win But I'd be very surprised not because his argument doesn't have appeal but because I think it's Running as an independent against the major parties is a trick you can only pull off once I don't mean you can't get reelected. But once you leave and try and come back I think it's much harder. And so I'm pessimistic. I mean don't really my labor party I don't just I say Tony is a guy I have a personal regard for and I like him I think he'd probably be better for the parliament than Barnaby, but well, I know he'd be better for the parliament than Barnaby but I'm doubtful that he can win In terms of preference deals look Essentially Voters make their own mind up. I remember when We were running against when the Australian Democrats were the third party and they put out a card There were three seats in a seat at the time They put out a card preferencing my colleague in the northern seat here and and having an open vote for me In the central seat And we got exactly the same preference flow made no difference at all. So I I don't think I don't want to get too carried away voters essentially make their own mind up and Other than in the Senate where those Senate deals Which hopefully be slightly less powerful this time because of the change to the Senate system, but in the House of Reps Voters pretty independent. They don't well. There's no registered A preference flow this time, is there you you have to Preference it. I mean you get a card on the way in maybe and you might take notice Of what the Libs want you to do if you're a Lib or whatever That's right, but it's but there's not that sort of preference whisper a trick that's been that got Ricky Muir elected on that's right 0.2 percent of the vote, but I think but I think the cards I'm interested to hear the panel's comment on this Apparently in this election the Liberals and the Labor have done a bit of a deal so that the Labor will preference the Liberals in three regional seats where there's a three-cornered contest Preference the Liberals ahead of the nationals and in return the Liberals in Two or three of the inner city seats will preference Labor ahead of the Greens Now I don't think those deals would be done if the Liberals or Labor thought it wasn't worth a go and maybe You know it'll get the Desired result. I mean look you'll chase any vote you can get right you're mad not to The they sort of have preference deals I find have two roles and one's early in the campaign where they're sending a bit of a message about who we are and who we stand for And we saw the Greens really come a cropper say in Sydney where they preferenced Fred Noel's party over the Liberal candidate And then at the pointy end they do have they do have a bigger role than we think I think usually about half of all votes Follow the how to vote preference to the letter remember We have an inordinately complicated voting system that the how to vote cards. I've seen for the Senate in the pre polling look Like a dog's breakfast. I keep using the same term, but they look really hard to follow So who knows how that's going to play out. We're going to have really high rates of informality I think But they will probably come into play certainly I think just the deal that's been done in Victoria to preference the Greens last Will certainly help Feeney in batting. Yeah, but I'm not sure he'll still get up, you know It's very difficult call that one. It makes a difference probably in granular in New South Wales and in Sydney for tanya coliver second Alvin easy, I guess It shores up their vote, but if you look at the betting odds, they're way in front Anyway, so it may not make too much difference. So I think in South Australia, they'll probably both preference Xenophon last But again If Xenophon's got a head of steam it can roll a few of those seats on both sides In South Australia, so if you get yeah, if you get the primary votes, you can beat the deals Can't you? Okay, well, it's um by my watch it's about three minutes to seven so our very interesting discussion Has to draw to an end I don't know about you, but I think that this election is certainly not a 2007 or 1996 Where it was clear that there would be a change of government the momentum was out there and was established And the election campaign didn't do much In fact did nothing To change it. This reminds me of a 1998 or maybe a 2010 It could be a long night It's it's hard to see That the government will get the sort of big swing back that That john howard got in 2004 against mark latham Mainly because Malcolm Turnbull's not a third term prime minister and bill shorton is not mark latham So we're not for which I am very very grateful And um, and we're not going to see the that final handshake Which was described by jim middleton on abc tv news that night as a liverpool kiss Anyway, so look, thank you very much. Thank you for coming and supporting this series the university the crawford people and I'll get the right name the Policy forum of the crawford school of public policy quite thrilled with the support the series has had So thank you for that and I should also thank very much our distinguished panel. It was a very interesting discussion. Thank you And uh I have here that uh, I should wish everyone all the best for happy voting So I hope the sausage at the sausage sizzle goes down well Thank you and good night