Subjects: Coalition Break-up
E&OE
STARTS: 5.04pm
Ends 5.18pm
LEON DELANEY
Well, good afternoon, and how the devil are you? Great to have you along today. Leon Delaney here with you, with Canberra live on 277. It’s your chance to have your say any topic anytime. All you need to do is get on the phone call me up 62551206, you can tell me what’s on your mind Canberra. Thanks to transport Canberra and City Services, little bit of road work tonight, weather permitting. Yes, well, the rain does seem to be clearing up, so you never know your luck. At Parks Lane and Road closures associated with the John Gorton Building Car Park upgrade from 6pm, Kings Avenue Westbound, two right hand turn lanes will be restricted preventing people from entering the car park from Kings Avenue Westbound and then from 7pm Kings Avenue Eastbound, we’ll have a lane closed for further roadworks. Then from 10pm tonight till 5pm tomorrow Kings Avenue Eastbound will be closed. Ongoing work associated with London Circuit, of course, will mean ongoing Lane closures on Commonwealth Avenue on occasions during weeknights between 8pm and 6am and weekdays between 9.30am and 3pm. And of course, there’s a little bit of work coming up next week. You can find all the details on the Transport Canberra and City Services website. 9 past 5 now. Well, they say a week is a long time in politics. I think the people in the National Party may have sprouted a few extra grey hairs this past week, as have their Liberal Party Coalition partners, or is that ex-partners or are they partners again? I’m confused. My head is still spinning. Former Leader of The Nationals, Member for Riverina, Michael McCormack, good afternoon.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Good afternoon, Leon, and you don’t wish your life away, but the end of the week couldn’t come soon enough, could it?
LEON DELANEY
It’s been a bizarre week in politics.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
It has.
LEON DELANEY
And certainly not something we’ve experienced for a very long period of time and it’s no secret that you were one of those inside the party room who spoke against the decision to walk away from the Coalition. Initially, Barnaby Joyce and others were refusing to comment, but somehow the word got out anyway. The sequence of events is really quite extraordinary. Does this mean that the Coalition is suffering from a degree of instability that might be impossible to overcome?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Nothing’s ever impossible and insurmountable, but we’ve got some work to do, there’s no question about that, and it did leak out, the fact that I spoke up forcibly and forcefully on behalf of remaining in the Coalition. But obviously there were others who disagreed and the majority rules in any political party and any democracy, and I adhered to that. But when it did get out, I admitted yes, absolutely, I spoke up in favour of remaining in the Coalition because I think it’s the best form of government, well obviously form of government, but certainly in Opposition, we need to be united, , get our stuff sorted and get on with the job of representing Australians because at the moment we’ve got drought in Southern New South Wales, although, albeit it’s drizzling around here at the moment in Wagga Wagga. We’ve got terrible, tragic floods in northern NSW, and you know, that should be our focus, people’s cost of living issues, we need to get back to listening to people, grassroots politics, taking their concerns to Canberra and acting on them, not talking about ourselves.
LEON DELANEY
One thing that has been highlighted though, has been the degree of divisions, not only within the Coalition, but within the parties of the Coalition, and certainly in the case of the National Party, people are now asking those pointed questions about whether or not David Littleproud’s position as leader is safe and you very cheekily said, “I’m ambitious for him”, when you were asked about that. And, of course, for those who have a short memory, the reason that is so cheeky is because it’s almost exactly what Scott Morrison said just day before usurping Malcolm Turnbull back in 2018. What did you intend by that remark?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh look, you can’t be boring and stick to the talking points all the time. I mean, that’s what Labor Members do, you see them, and they’re just drones, they just get the Labor dirt unit’s message of the day and they just go out and learn it off by heart and trot it out. I mean, you know, you got to be a little bit cheeky. You got to have a little bit of spunk in you, I suppose some days. And I’m a bit of a student of political history, I, of course, was there at the time when, I think it was August 24th 2018, when Scott took over as the Prime Minister. And of course, at the time, yes, there were ructions going that the Nationals thought The Liberals had well and truly blown it up. But you know, Scott and I got together, we reformed what was the remnants of the Coalition at the time, even though we were in Government, things weren’t going all that flash, and it just goes to show from August, then to the next election, just the following year, we won, what was described as the miracle victory. So, it can be done and we were a good team and we had fires and floods and you know, later on COVID hit and, you know, they were they were devastating times for Australia, but we got through it, we/our COVID preparedness was marked off as the second best in the world by the John Hopkins Institute. But you know, look a week is a long time in politics, as you said at the top of the piece, and three years is an eternity, Leon.
LEON DELANEY
Well, that’s right. But of course, here we are at the moment, after the last few days. You say that you know, you’ve got to have a bit of a sense of humour. You’ve got to have a bit of pizzazz, bit of personality, but were you really just being cheeky or was that …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
…Yeah, totally, totally …
LEON DELANEY
Some sort of warning to David Littleproud that he’s on notice, he’s got to lift his game because clearly, he’s dropped the ball this week, hasn’t he?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, look, a bit of all that and David would have probably acknowledge himself that things could have been done better, there’s been a few missteps, but he would also think, well, given the fact that the Liberals have signed off, in principle, at a party meeting via telepresence today. Those four important points: nuclear, divestiture, the USO, the Telecommunications Universal Service obligation, and the Regional Future Fund, those are important things, and they’ve signed off on those in principle so, he would, he could well regard it as being a successful week. But the difficulty there is you just can’t then go and blow the Coalition up every time you have a difference of view in the future. So, look there will be, you know, some baby steps taken from here on in I’d imagine. But look, politics is a very volatile and interesting caper. Who knows what could happen in the days and weeks ahead?
LEON DELANEY
Well, absolutely right, and of course, as you pointed out, it is important for, you know, an Opposition to be providing a coherent and viable opposition to hold the government to account and you can’t be doing that while you’re …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
… While you’re a rebel. You can’t.
LEON DELANEY
Exactly right, of course. The Liberal Party itself is not yet in a position to fully sign on to those policies, they wanted to have a full policy review in the wake of the election lost but that’s only reasonable, isn’t it?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yeah, I guess so, but look, we’ll regroup, we’ll restock, we’ll go back and review what was done wrong, we will obviously look at what we did right, and there were a few little things, but we’ve had a shattering loss and that was mostly the Liberal Party. The National Party have retained all our seats, all 15 Lower House seats in the House of Representatives, and so we’re obviously doing something right. So, look, we’ll review all that, but you know it was only last week that Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus were causing, well Ed, in particular, ructions within the Labor Party. So, you know, give it a week Labor will be tearing themselves apart.
LEON DELANEY
I don’t think those two individuals caused those ructions, those ructions were inflicted upon them by factional overlords and or … What did he say? A factional assassin.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, you could argue that this has been a little bit of the same. There’s obviously, I suppose you could describe it as factions, but I suppose at the end of the day politicians are sent to Canberra to do what’s right for Australian citizens first and foremost, there’s no other reason, to keep Australians safe and to make deliverability of our communities better places, and that hasn’t really been done this week, we need to stop talking about ourselves, stop navel gazing, get this situation sorted out and get back to work and doing what we best and that is representing the interests of Australians, particularly in my case, regional Australians.
LEON DELANEY
You know, I think here’s the thing, a lot of people don’t really get is why the rush to pull the plug in the first place?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I agree. I agree.
LEON DELANEY
There’s plenty of time to work through the issues, Parliament is not sitting till the 22nd of July.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
And earlier this week, it was probably considered the 28th of July, so it was only it was only yesterday, the day before, that the actual calendar came out, so you know, we had enough time to sort this out without going getting all messy about it, but unfortunately, we did. There’s a bit of blood on the floor, but we’ll wipe that up, we’ll scrape it up, put a few Band-Aids on and move on.
LEON DELANEY
Will David Littleproud still be the Leader of the National Party at the time of the next election?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh look, I can’t answer that. That’s three weeks … three years, I wish it was three weeks away. That’s three years away, Leon. I mean I just wish I knew, you know, the winners at the races were going to be this weekend or indeed the Melbourne Cup winner this year. I mean, you just don’t know, you can’t tell, I mean, and particularly with politics the way it is these days, it is just so fluid, and I know when I was the Leader of the National Party, you know, there were always challenges, there were always ups and downs and you know you ride the bumps, but as Chumbawamba once said “You get knocked down, you get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.”
LEON DELANEY
Who would have thought, that you and Barnaby Joyce would be on the same page?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Who would have thunk it. And it seems now that we’re going to be sitting in Cockies’ Corner up the back comparing photos and memes and goodness knows, but look, we’ll be working hard for Australia, trust me, we will be. Barnaby and I have always, always voted the same way. We’ve always had the common theory that, you know, our electorates, New England in his case, Riverina in mine, need the best representation. I believe we’ve provided that and irrespective of some differences for positions in the past, you know, there’s much in common, there’s far more in common that unites Barnaby Joyce and I, than that which divides.
LEON DELANEY
To borrow another phrase, you’re good at that aren’t you?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, you’ve got to, I’m a student of history, I like my history, and you know, if you’re not careful, history has a habit of repeating itself.
LEON DELANEY
If you don’t learn the lessons from history, you will be doomed to repeat those mistakes.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well done.
LEON DELANEY
Well, thanks very much for chatting.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Anytime Leon, good on you.
LEON DELANEY
Michael McCormack, former Nationals’ Leader and Member for Riverina.