Prime Minister the Party. Ventral Politics with Dennis Shanahan, National Editor of The Australian Dennis Shanahan, Good morning, good day, lude, nice day in Camper. I'm sure it is, my friend.
It's a very nice day. And on down the coast it's even nicer.
Of course you are, or you're probably not far from that bus manufacturing planet at Nara.
But we well, I was listening to that. I'm I'm a little bit further south, okay, but it's beautiful on my cap.
Sure it is lost to talk about here. The Trump administration's asked Australia to lift its defense spending. The Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles says, we're up for the conversation. The PM's not so convinced.
Is he. No, he's not. Look, we knew this request was going to come. Ever since Donald Trump was elected president. He's been saying he wants all the allies to spend more. He's asked the Europeans to spend five percent of their GDP. The figure that the US has pointed to Australia is about three percent now. During the election campaign or before the election campaign, Labor committed to a two percent going
to two point three in eight years time. Now, that's well short of what the US administration has now asked Richard Miles for in Singapore, and Richard Miles I said, yeah, we're up for this conversation. I love this term that we're up for the conversation. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister this week has been bagging out think Tank for saying that we needed to spend more and say no, we don't and all the rest. So it looks like Richard Miles and Anthony A. Lbernozi are going to have to have
one of those conversations about increasing spending now. Peter Dutton committed during the campaign to increase defense spending to three percent. Now the Prime Minister indicated that he would spend more if necessary. The question now is does he think it's necessary that the US is saying, yes, we need to put in an estimated extra twenty eight billion dollars into the defense budget.
Goodness me. The coalition finally back together. A new team looks to be a product of the factions and payback as well being very inexperienced, making the future potentially harder. In opposition, people like Jane Hume, who obviously screwed things up at a ridiculous level with that work from home idea, even though it was for the public service. It was so easy for the government to twist that. But she's mia to center. Price looks like she's been demoted. What do you make of it?
Well, look the Jacinta Novinjimpa Price is is a typical example here. She defected from the NATS after the Country Liberal Party to be precise to the Liberal Party and joined them and said she'd be in their party room. The expectation was that she would be rewarded with this and that she would likely be Indigenous affairs spokesman for the Liberals. Now it turns out Karen Little a very good by the way, she's very good, and I've got no problem. In fact, I think it's a very good appointment.
But it is clear that some of the expectations from Susan Lee's decisions on who she put wear have fallen well short. Certainly Jane Hume has suffered her from working from Hume problems. But she was one of the better performers for the coalition in opposition. She was a good financed spokesman and so I think that she's really suffered, probably too much of a demotion then, more than she deserved.
We saw Angus Taylor shifted to foreign affairs. Now he had not really hit the government hard enough on the economy when he should have, but his foreign affairs isn't so much of a demotion. It's a bit of a sideway shift. But there are other promotions and emotions which indicate Susan Lee and David Little Proud rewarding people who
voted for them in close leadership ballots. This is always a recipe for disaster and what we've seen, particularly in the appointments in New South Wales is what everyone feared, and that is the continuation of the factional fighting, which in the New South Wales branch is particularly bad. It's not real flashy elsewhere, I have to admit, but it does indicate that the Susan Lee David a Little Proud team.
While they are a coalition of short on experience, some people have been favored above others because of backing and factional support, and I don't think this is good for the long term, which for a fairly inexperienced group to take on what is now a very confident government.
Yeah, confident. They certainly are all right. Dentists just hold their re sect. My friend will take a break, come back and talk more. We've got carbon emission reduction targets, so we're going to get there. I'm not so sure. We will back with Dennis on that and plenty more after this. Just before I get back to Dennis, a couple of things quickly.
No.
L four Westmead and Carlingford Line light rail services are running between Westmeat and Paramatta Square. There are urgent tram repairs at the Children's Hospital. We've just been told this, and replacement us as have been requested but are yet
to start running. More details upcoming. And the woman accused of the murder of her three year old daughter near Bunderberg earlier this week has been found unresponsive in her cell at Queensland Police saying detectives from the Corrective Services Investigation Unit investigating after a thirty two year old woman was located unresponsive violent custody at Brisbane Women's Correctional Center yesterday.
There's no further information. Lauren Ingrid Flannigan, thirty two, allegedly stabbed her daughter Sofia multiple times on the front law lawn of their home at Moore Park Beach on Monday. Again we'll get further info. Miss Flannagan's been transferred. I'm told to hospital one three one eight seven three is
a number. On a Saturday morning, we chapped to Dennis Shanahan, the national editor of The Oars and Dennis failing carbon emission reduction targets and rising tricity prices putting new pressure on the government's renewable energy policies.
Yes, look, look the government got you know, it's set a big mandate for its renewable energies policy from the election campaign, but now we've got a few problems starting to appear. For a start, on the sort of the environmental climate change side, it is clear now the government is not going to reach its twenty thirty emissions targets. It is not going to do it. The latest figures show that carbon emissions are increasing and as the Green said,
they're actually higher than they were under Scott Morrison. That's partly because the COVID impact on manufacturing. But what we've actually seen is an increase in carbon emissions, particularly from the power sector, and so what we've actually got is the government suffering from increased its promises and targets being broken because of the increased use of coal fired power stations,
extending the life of coal five power stations. We need this for the electricity, but it means that the emissions are going up. And not only that, in addition, the renewable rollout of all the windmills and the offshore wind production, the big solar are all falling behind Hydro, the snowy hydro falling behind, going behind schedule. So they're just not
going to reach these targets. And on the other side, on the consumer side, electricity prices are going to go up on the East Coast from July one by ten percent. So we all remember that promise of the cut in our electricity prices of two hundred and seventy five dollars the election before. So what the government is now seeing is after the election in the coldhar a light of
day is what we're seeing. Increased power prices, increase carbon emissions, and both of them are hurting them in different parts of the.
Electric Yeah, it's just unraveling like many people said it would, and it will continue. And I'll just say, oh, we need to get more solar and more wind, and I'll just make it worse. Do you think there'll be another interest rate cut in July?
Well, look, I think that the figures certainly suggest they would. I didn't think the Reserve Bank would go as it did at the last meeting, but they did, and that was shown this week to have been the right decision because what we've seen inflation has been steady, but retail sales are down. This is the first time in several years that retail sales on a month to month basis have actually gone down. We've also had a collapse in
private investment for business. These are big problems for the government. We've got all of the employer groups, all of the business groups, all the industry groups saying we're in a real bother now productivity and we're seeing increased industrial action, increased demands for higher wages, and the private sector is saying we're not going to invest while we've got all of these problems. This was the biggest drop in private investment for years, and it has really come as a
surprise to both the Treasury and business. So I think that the economy is starting to get into that sort of delayed reaction where people are pulling back from spending money and business is saying we're not going to invest. These are longer term problems the government is really going to have to face, and I think the Reserve Bank will probably have to cut rates again in July.
Have a nice time down on the South coast, mate, always good to chat to you. Look after yourself and I'll talk to you in a week's time, thankfully. Dennis Shanahan, National editor of the Australian newspaper. It all looks. It's incredible the speed with which political news, financial news and the like revolves, and how things can quickly turn, and how you know you need to have a steady hand, and that of letting a government is not the best
three word slogan that's on offer. I'm not saying anything necessarily about Jimbo or Albow or any of the other Bow's ability to deal with things here, but to think that you know, we're on fire, we're heading in the right direction and let's go again, baby, It's sometimes I mean, you can think that way and hope that way, but it really ends up being that simple, doesn't It always the case