The seats we’ll be watching on Saturday

Well, it’s finally here. Saturday is election day, and by Saturday night we will have some idea of who is going to govern Australia for the next three years, during this volatile and pivotal moment in global history. 

Today, we talk about the seats to watch on election night, the ones that will determine the outcome of the poll. 

And we will also zoom out to the bigger picture. 

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have depicted duelling visions of the Australia they want to build. They also have sharply different leadership styles. 

Which one is the more appealing to voters in the current moment? 

Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss all this we have chief political correspondent David Crowe, and senior economics correspondent Shane Wright.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, the
2nd of May. Well, it is finally here. Tomorrow is
election Day, and by tomorrow night we will have some
idea of who is going to govern Australia for the
next three years during this volatile and pivotal moment in

(00:22):
global history. Today we're going to talk about the seats
to watch on election night, the ones that will determine
the outcome of the poll. And we'll also zoom out
to the bigger picture. Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have
depicted duelling visions of the Australia that they want to build.
They also have sharply different leadership styles. Which one is
the more appealing to voters in the current moment? Joining

(00:46):
me to discuss all this, we have chief political correspondent
David Crowe and our senior economics correspondent Shane Wright. Welcome, guys.

S2 (00:54):
Great to be here. It is always a pleasure to
see you, Jack.

S1 (00:57):
Are you guys feeling tired? You must be a bit weary.

S2 (00:59):
The adrenaline still pumping through the body.

S1 (01:02):
Okay, good. I was I wasn't talking physically. I was
talking more on an existential level. But but that's fine.
It's good to know.

S3 (01:08):
The coffee covers all levels.

S1 (01:10):
Yeah. It does. Um, I want to start with the
nerdy stuff today. The seat by seat detail. Because while
we tend to focus on the grander narrative when we're,
you know, sort of reporting on things at a federal level,
actually election campaigns are very much fought seat by seat. David,
which electorates will you be watching on election night?

S3 (01:28):
A lot of the city fringe electorates, because we know
that that is where Peter Dutton is basically, uh, staking
his future because his message to the liberals has been,
we can win the outer suburban seats. Uh, I'm thinking
of places like McEwen on the northern fringes of Melbourne.
And one of the big factors here for the Liberal

(01:48):
campaign is the cost of living on families in outer suburbs.
They're distant from those inner city areas where, you know,
there's a more progressive agenda. And some of these seats,
like Wairoa on the south western fringe of Sydney around Liverpool,
are seen as prime targets for Peter Dutton, especially with

(02:11):
things like his, uh, 25 cent a litre cut to
fuel excise. He gets photographed every day at a petrol
station for a very good reason. That's his message to
those voters.

S1 (02:23):
I'm also interested in Bradfield on Sydney's North Shore, because
that's sort of a prime next target for the teals.
Nicolette Bulla has been campaigning for that seat. She came
very close to winning it last time, more or less.
Some would say knocked off Paul Fletcher, the sitting liberal,
because he retired for this election. But it has been
reported that he retired after seeing some polling that wasn't

(02:45):
so good for him. What do you think's going to
happen there?

S3 (02:49):
I think that's going to be a very tough race
for the Liberal Party. They've got a good candidate, Giselle Septarian.
She's been a liberal sort of loyal member for many years. Um,
she's a younger woman. She can present herself as as
part of the future for the Liberal Party in that
part of the world. There are conservative branches for the

(03:09):
liberals in that part of the world. So I don't
think that it's a, you know, it's it should be
liberal territory and it should stay liberal territory. Yeah. However,
Nicolette Buhler is running a very good campaign, and when
I visited some of the early polling stations in Bradfield recently,
I was struck by the number of volunteers that the
teal campaign has got set aside, that sometimes they don't

(03:30):
like the teal word, but I'm going to use it.
I ran into some of the climate 200 operatives that
I've seen in other independent campaigns, so I know that
the climate 200 funding for Nicolette Buhler is considerable, so
they're not to be dismissed. Ah, and Peter Dutton hasn't
visited that seat during the campaign. Mhm. So that's a

(03:53):
real live question about whether he is a net asset
for Giselle or whether a liability Reliability.

S1 (03:58):
And Giselle, captain, as you say, is a very good,
credible candidate. She presents well, but she was preselected very late.
Whereas Nicolette Buhler has been calling herself the shadow member
and basically has has had an electorate office up and
running for the last three years.

S3 (04:12):
That's right. And that's I think that shows a kind
of a commitment that she's having a second go. And
sometimes we've seen in history it can take a couple
of goes before you get elected. You've got to keep
at it.

S1 (04:24):
Let's go to Queensland briefly because there's some really, really
interesting match ups in Queensland. We've got Brisbane and we've
got Griffith. Talk to us about those.

S3 (04:32):
Brisbane and Griffith are seen by labor as essential targets
and this is totally rational. These are seats that were
won by the Greens at the last election. And labor
believes that they can turn them to labor. Griffith is
Kevin Rudd's old seat, but it's now held by Max Chandler-mather.

(04:52):
That's a grudge match. Okay. Max does not like Anthony Albanese.
Anthony Albanese does not like Max, so there's a lot
riding on that. There's a lot of personal egos at
stake there. And there's also this question of whether Labor's
got a good policy on housing or whether Max has
won the argument because he's the housing spokesperson for the Greens.
So that's a real one to watch and I can't

(05:14):
pick that one. But I do hear from labor people
that they're more confident of Brisbane. That's held by the
Greens MP Stephen Bates. Labor thinks that he does not
have the same kind of brand recognition that Max Chandler-mather
has in the seat next door, so they think that
their candidate has a pretty good chance in Brisbane. Nearby

(05:37):
there's a there's another Brisbane seat which is called Ryan.
It's a bit more outer urban. And that's where I
think the liberals are hopeful of winning that from the Greens.
But look, it's it's pretty hard to tell at a
national level. We don't see any increase in vote for
the Greens. Right. There are about 13% in primary vote terms.

S1 (05:59):
They're even talking about possibly dropping off a little bit
because they were at a high watermark last election.

S3 (06:04):
But we're talking highly local contests. It's really about the
character of the competing candidates and local issues. That's what
really worked for Max Chandler-mather in Griffith last time. And
so we can't make predictions. All we know is that
those races are really ones to watch. If labor wants
an increased majority, as they do, they've got to win Brisbane.

(06:25):
I think that's essential for them and they would really
like to.

S2 (06:30):
And they have to head off the greens in MacNamara
in Melbourne and Wills in Melbourne as well, where the
Greens have really heavily targeting those two inner city seats against,
like Josh Byrnes, the labor member for MacNamara has been
like a lightning bolt around the whole Gaza issue for

(06:50):
some time. Yeah, and then you get into Wills again.
Peter Khalil, the Labour member, has been really heavily like targeted.
He's even this week I believe there were people are
camped out outside his office or on top of his office,
a bit more graffiti. Um.

S1 (07:09):
pro-Palestinian.

S2 (07:10):
Yeah, pro-Palestinian. Those things are really blowing up in those
those tight inner seats where it's it's left versus really left,
as opposed to a more traditional left versus right argument.

S1 (07:21):
Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? Shane, you've been working on
a story this week about sort of swing swing booths
within electorates. So even like when you narrow it down
to the micro electorate level within an electorate, it's impossible
to sort of generalise about the area. Can you tell
us about that story?

S2 (07:40):
Yeah. For instance, like we haven't mentioned Gilmore, which is
like Fiona Phillips won that seat from Andrew Constance by
373 votes at the last election.

S1 (07:50):
And that's the New South Wales south coast. So the
lovely sort of.

S2 (07:53):
New South Wales south coast coming from about Kiama all
the way down just south of Batemans Bay. Now right
at the top is a beautiful spot called Kangaroo Valley.
Bucolic might be the term. If I was in England,
that'd be the term I'd use. Um, that area has
been swinging towards Labour for the last two two elections,
even though there had been a swing back against the

(08:15):
Liberal Party. And you can see it's a little bit different.
It's within 20 minutes of a place called Bomaderry, which
has been swinging the same way as the rest of
the seat. So we've got these, like we've talked, say,
about McEwen on the northern outskirts of Melbourne, the suburb
of Doreen. This is mortgage Belt Central. Huge big homes,
people really heavily indebted. It has been swinging consistently towards

(08:41):
the Liberal Party over the last couple of elections, even
though Rob Mitchell, the local labor member, has been able
to hold on. So those sorts of areas really, we're
targeting into tiny bits of electorates. So it's easy to
say as both parties talk about particular seats, they generalize.

(09:01):
But even like we've looked at Bulleen, which is a
suburb of the seat of Menzies, there's a split within
that particular suburb, um, where there's a is an older
Italian Greek population which swung nine points towards labor at
the last election. Um, so you can see even within

(09:22):
these the we talk broadly, you've talked about how we
look federally, the 150 seats, how they all add up
the the electorate by electorate battle. But often it can
come down to Booth by booth. And that's what we've
really picked up.

S3 (09:37):
Can I just add something about Gilmore? Because I do
think that that's so important, it's so marginal. And I
think on the polling we were seeing up until the campaign,
people would have just assumed the liberals would win it. Um,
it's a very mixed seat. When I was talking to
somebody on the labor side about a recent visit down there,
because I've got extended family in in that part of
the world. The question to me was, you know, is

(09:59):
my extended family New Gilmore or Old Gilmore? Old Gilmore
is farming families and so forth. New Gilmore can be
see changes and tree changes. And I think that's what's
happening in places like Kangaroo Valley. When I went through
and was staying in the area in East Nowra, for instance,
that's not a that part of the world is doing

(10:19):
it hard with the cost of living crisis. And I
saw signs up for the Liberal candidate, Andrew Constance, in
a low socioeconomic part of the electorate. And I think
that's something that we need to remember when we see
Peter Dutton talk about crime and safety. I think that
resonates with people, and it's not an economic issue. They
feel the cost of living crisis, but they're also worried

(10:40):
about safety. And I think that works for the Liberal Party.
I kept driving and in a farming part of the community,
there were signs up for Fiona Phillips, the Labour candidate.
She's a farmer's daughter from a dairy farm. I mean,
this is playing with some of the stereotypes about which
side of politics appeals to which part of the electorate.

S1 (11:00):
Look, it's absolutely fascinating because it goes to a trend
that Anthony Albanese, I think, referenced in one of the debates,
which is that people are much less likely now to
be rusted on labor or rusted on liberal or rusted
on that they they share their vote around much more easily.
And there's less tribal loyalty now. It's really fascinating.

S2 (11:17):
I was just going to say, like, I'm interested in Wannon,
which is Malcolm Fraser's old seat in the western districts
of Victoria and Cowper, which to go even further back,
was Earl Page's seat when he was the leader of
the Country Party. Where you've got two you've got these independents.
Climate independents like Dan Tehan is defending Wannon frontbencher and

(11:41):
everyone believes he's in trouble against Alex Dyson. Over down
that way. Then you head up to Cowper where you've
got Pat Counihan representing the Nats in a seat that
has been National Party territory forever. In a day where
he's in trouble fighting off another teal, a climate tinged

(12:05):
independent in Caz highs. And you go like we've talked
about like the theory around or the whole discussion about
teal independence has been particularly in the Liberal Party. It's
focused on inner city traditional. Yeah. Soft a small l
liberal type voters. But Kath McGowan going back away. She

(12:27):
won Indi in rural Victoria as an independent. Independence in
rural areas have a great and long storied history.

S3 (12:36):
And what we've seen with the Liberal Party vote is
their primary vote has fallen during the campaign, not just
in our surveys but in others. And if there is
this weakness for the liberals, that's actually going to play
into the hands of those independent candidates, and there's a
lot of resources going into those campaigns. There's some published
data that shows that in the seat of Monash, held

(12:58):
by the Liberal former Liberal Russell Broadbent, south eastern Victoria,
just outside Melbourne, $476,000 has gone into the teal independent campaign. Now,
not all the teals are declaring how much money they're
getting from climate 200. But if climate 200 is putting
that much money into that campaign, just imagine what they're

(13:21):
spending elsewhere. And so there's a high level of unpredictability
about whether that pays off.

S2 (13:27):
And we we've talked about the teals, but I think
One Nation will be a discussion point on on Saturday night.
How it's like our our poll is not showing a
lot of change, but there's been definitely an improvement. So
and this is part of the Liberal Party tactic is right.
Our vote might be down in these outer suburban seats,

(13:49):
but it may be moving towards one nation. So I
think of, say, Andrew Giles seat in Scullin. I because
I lived in that area growing up. John Cain, the
former labor premier of Victoria. The working class neck of
the woods. And they showed voters there. There was a
big lift in One Nation and Clive Palmer vote at
the last election. I don't think we'll be talking about

(14:10):
how low their vote is. I think we'll be talking
about how high and their preference flows out of one
out of one nation. And what's Clive's trumpets, whatever that
party is at the moment.

S1 (14:23):
Trumpet of patriots.

S3 (14:24):
Just refer to your text message. You'll see the name.

S1 (14:26):
Yeah, he'll text you in a few minutes and you
can refresh your memory. Um, I want to just ask now,
zooming out, focusing or trying to think about the narratives
that each of the major party leaders has presented and
the sort of the narrative arc or the vision for
the future that Peter Dutton has presented versus Anthony Albanese.
I want you guys to reflect on what those different

(14:47):
visions are, if they've been very clear and whether or
not they've been particularly sort of sharply divided.

S3 (14:53):
David, from Peter Dutton. It's very clearly a question mark.
Do you feel better off than you were three years ago?
The answer on the metrics is that households will not
be feeling better off, because inflation has eroded their household finances,
and wages over the three years have not kept up
with that inflation. So there's pressure on households. He galvanizes

(15:14):
the grievance.

S1 (15:15):
Do you think he offers a sort of a particular
kind of narrative or vision for what he wants, apart
from ameliorating people's bottom lines in their household budgets for
what kind of Australia he wants to see or build.

S3 (15:27):
I think he asserts that the coalition are the better
economic managers, but he asserts it as an article of faith.
And I think one of the problems for his campaign
has been going off message, setting up little side distraction disputes, um,
working from home, not knowing the EV policy on on
electric vehicles clearly enough.

S1 (15:48):
Welcome to country stuff.

S3 (15:50):
Well that especially I think, Jackie, because I think to
spend some of the last week on a culture war
when you could be hammering the government on the economy
and what you're offering on the cost of living and
a better way for households, I think is a very
interesting kind of gamble. And I am really curious on
Saturday night as to whether it pays off.

S1 (16:11):
And what about Albanese?

S3 (16:13):
Well, I think it's very much a message about, yes,
we hear you. You're doing it tough. We have these
solutions and we've started acting and we've got more to do.
It's a classic political line, um, heading in the right direction,
but more to do. They're not asking for too much
of a pat on the back for what they've already done.

(16:35):
Anthony Albanese is weak on the key question are households
better off? He couldn't answer that clearly at the Press
Club on Wednesday.

S1 (16:43):
Well they're not. I mean, it's incontrovertible that we're just not.

S3 (16:49):
But he has a list of things about the future.
And this has been fundamental to the Labour campaign from
the beginning. Don't just talk about the last three years.
Talk about the forward. Offer what you're getting in the
next three years. You're getting childcare. You're getting Medicare bulk billing,
you're getting school funding, you're getting hospital funding, you're getting

(17:11):
all these other things energy rebates and a tax cut, which,
by the way, the coalition would reverse. So all those
things have played into a narrative about the forward offer.

S1 (17:21):
So it's basically trust us. Hang in there. We're onto it. Yeah. Um, Shane,
what do you think about the competing visions of both leaders?

S2 (17:29):
I'm thinking more in the context of previous leaders over the,
over the years. So. So Peter Dutton, like you, the
best opposition leader I think I've seen there's two Tony
Abbott and Kevin Rudd both winning from opposition and Abbott.
Abbott was yep. Absolute grievance. Absolute attack. But he did

(17:51):
keep saying, When I'm when we're elected, if the Liberal
Party is elected in 2013, there'll be people will feel
confident again.

S1 (17:58):
He did. Yeah he did.

S2 (17:59):
He was talking about the confidence fairy sprinkling her pixie
dust everywhere and people would feel better. And I think
that's part of the missing message from from Dutton. He
has played very strongly and played very well in terms
of the grievance and the darkness. Um, but I think
he has missed that element of Abbott that I think

(18:20):
was really important as well, saying, right, there will be
there are better days with me.

S1 (18:26):
And I think that's such a liberal, a Liberal Party
message and it's an aspirational message. John Howard was particularly
good at conveying it. It's an optimism. It's like, you know,
we've got great economic times ahead. They just we just
need the Liberal Party to, to manifest it. Yeah.

S2 (18:40):
And we've got into like the tax cut has been
the missing tax cut has been really interesting. Like Peter
Dutton has a tax cut. It lasts for one year.
But he has not been. He has barely mentioned it.
Like the people, the journos travelling with Dutton, I want
to get them their health tested because of the amount
of time they spend at service stations over the last

(19:00):
five weeks, but hearing anything about tax, because as soon
as he brings up, it's then why is the Liberal
Party opposing tax relief straight off and repealing tax relief.

S1 (19:12):
Instead of pointing out that they're also offering a.

S2 (19:14):
Tax.

S1 (19:15):
Cut, whereas.

S2 (19:15):
Anthony Albanese, I'm actually thinking of him as John Howard
in 96, as in like relaxed and comfortable because that's
where Albanese he has tried to play. Look, I'm not
volatile like the other bloke or that the big orange
bloke over in the US. I'm calm. We are methodical.
I don't know. I've lost track of the number of

(19:36):
times he's talked about being methodical. He was mentioning it
again at the Press Club this week about a cabinet
process where we've got a plan for the future, but
we're not going to scare the bejesus out of you.
And and that is very much a Howard approach to
campaigning as well. So that's that's where I like I'm
an historic nerd and that's where I play into it.

(19:59):
And I can I can see you laughing at that. Uh, Jackie. Uh,
but yeah, that's that's how I, I've been feeling throughout
the campaign.

S1 (20:07):
We we love the history nerds. We love it. Um, guys,
just tell us quickly where you're both going to be
on election night.

S3 (20:13):
Uh, in Sydney on election night, because that's where we'll
be coordinating the coverage. Uh, there's a chance, if deadlines permit,
that I could duck out and perhaps attend the labor event. Uh,
but that's very challenging to do. It's challenging to write
in real time while you've got this noise around you.
I did it in 2019 when I was at the

(20:35):
Bill shorten event in, in outer Melbourne, where, of course, uh,
they lost. They were crying. They were they were crying.
They really were crying into their beer. Right. Um, but
it was hard to write. When you've got the noise
and the drama all around.

S1 (20:50):
Too much emotion.

S2 (20:51):
I'll be in the Sydney office with Matt Wade calling seats.

S1 (20:57):
It'll be so fun. I'm going to be at the
elbow event, which will be somewhere in, um, the inner
west of Sydney. We don't know where yet, and so
I'll be the person writing in the corner on their laptop.

S3 (21:08):
They're always big moments of drama, and we've got colleagues
who will be in Brisbane for Peter Dutton's night, which
is going to be interesting to see what the room's like.
You never know what you're going to get, because I
think if the coalition win more than ten seats, gain
more than ten seats, there'll be some on their side

(21:29):
who think that that's a good outcome. When things are
looking pretty tough for them right now. So a lot
of the questions are about how many seats does it
take for the Liberals and Nationals to hold their heads
up high on Saturday night?

S1 (21:43):
And the and the recriminations and the bloodbath will happen
very quickly. I predict it's going to be such an
interesting night. Guys, I think we're going to be doing
a podcast super late on Saturday night, which will be
out on Sunday morning, just so everyone knows. Thanks, fellas.
See you Saturday.

S3 (22:00):
Thank you.

S2 (22:01):
Thank you Jackie.

S1 (22:05):
Today's episode was produced by Tammy Mills with technical assistance
from Josh towers. And Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop,
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(22:26):
The Sydney Morning Herald websites and to support our journalism,
subscribe to us by visiting the page or. Subscribe. I'm
Jacqueline Maley. Thank you for listening.