RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC SYDNEY MORNINGS WITH HAMISH MACDONALD
MONDAY, 2 FEBRUARY 2026
TOPICS: COALITION; ONE NATION; COST OF LIVING; UPCOMING VISIT OF ISRAELI PRESIDENT, ISAAC HERZOG
MACDONALD: Susan Templeman is the Federal Labor member for Macquarie here in Sydney. She's in our Parliament House studios this morning and Sam Maiden is the political editor for news.com.au. Good morning to both of you. Good morning. Sam Maiden, a lot of reaction to these polls this morning showing One Nation surging. the coalition parties, former coalition parties dropping, but also Pauline Hanson, the most popular politician. I know it's not a Newspoll, it is your organisation's poll, but the Redbridge poll is a relatively respected poll. This is not kind of out of nowhere.
MAIDEN: No, that's right. It's showing once again that support for One Nation is surging. The real question, though, I think, is whether there's a protest vote being parked there because of the disarray within the coalition. Now, Barnaby Joyce has been out there doing a bit of a vaudeville number, a bit of a sizzle that there's more defections to come. My understanding is that they don't relate to Nationals, MPs or any serving MPs in Parliament right now but a lot of sizzle on that and a press conference that One Nation is going to hold tomorrow to announce their big reveal.
MACDONALD: Susan Templeman, how do you view these polls?
TEMPLEMAN: Well I think when the polls are showing such support for extremes you know it's even more important what we do in the Parliament to bring people together and to find a common pathway but you know you have to be about 60 to remember the Joe for Canberra campaign in the 80s and I was a young journo in the press gallery then and it has that feel to it, lots of slogans, lots of razzamatazz, but that one in the end completely fizzled, although of course it meant that the Conservatives were relegated to a non-government role for many, many years. So I think there are real risks in here for Conservatives. Really, we've got to, all of us need to be asking questions. What policies are we actually talking about? There's lots of slogans, but there's not very much depth.
MACDONALD: The Labor support though, if we take these polls as relatively accurate, and noting that some people don't believe them. Labor has about 34%. When you tally all of the other support that's going elsewhere, there's fracturing, but there's also, when you add it up, a huge swathe of the population that doesn't agree with the government of the day or doesn't support it. Does that worry you? Does that make it harder to be a middle-of-the-road government?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, I'm always talking to my constituents about what are they not feeling fully satisfied with. And I think it's clear that minor parties are tapping in, on both sides, are tapping into themes of discontent. And our job is to demonstrate that while there are no quick answers to many of the issues that are causing cost of living and the concerns that come across from that, we have to be able to demonstrate how we are tackling those issues and not getting caught up in this, like the opposition is, in internal turmoil and looking at themselves and navel gazing. We're really clear who we're there for. And we know that cost of living is a huge issue for people. You particularly feel it as a family when your kids are going back to school. So right now it is even more that feeling. And obviously housing remains a very big problem that we are moving heaven and earth to tackle.
MACDONALD: Well we are going to deal with that in just a moment because the Reserve Bank is meeting tomorrow. There's lots of speculation. of an interest rate hike. But just Sam Maiden briefly on some of the news of the day. Unfolding now is this Nationals leadership challenge. Colin Boyce announced that he would challenge. Michael McCormack, the former leader, former Deputy PM, said on Radio National this morning that David Littleproud still has his support.
Soundbite MICHAEL MCCORMACK: If it goes ahead, then so be it. That's democracy. Anybody's entitled to put their hands up. and we'll have to see how it plays out. I know that Colin is a bit unhappy at the moment with how things are going. I think David Littleproud has the numbers. I think he's got the security there, so we'll just have to see what transpires.
MACDONALD: So Sam, what are you expecting to happen this morning?
MAIDEN: Nothing. So, I mean, I think what will, it's not even clear that Colin Boyce has a seconder by his mention. And so in that event, maybe there's going to be some mystery kamikaze agent, but I think that unless it's possible, I suppose, that David Littlecrab would spill the list himself as some sort of show of string, But I think that Colin Boyce gets a massive gold star for generating a week's worth of national media with a liberal, with a coalition, I should say liberal coalition, with a national leadership spill where it's not sure that he has more than one vote, which is his own.
MACDONALD: On that very point that you seem to be grappling with there, whether there will be a coalition or not, Dan Tehan told Radio National this morning that he's hopeful actually that the coalition will get back together.
Soundbite DAN TEHAN: We need to do this quietly after today when the National Party will decide on whether that spill motion goes ahead or not. I think we need to quietly get senior people together and work through how we can get the coalition back together and that should be done behind closed doors.
MACDONALD: Does that sound realistic to you, Sam?
MAIDEN: Well, the tricky thing, I think, is that David Littleproud and Susan Ley, I think the technical term is they hate each other's guts. And I suppose they can sort of pretend for a bit, but I assume that the more likely thing that is at some point, Angus Taylor will wait for Newspoll and general chaos to just wear away the support for Susan Ley. I do think it's really interesting that we've got to a point after all this heavy breathing and frenzied speculation where we're really back where we started, which is Angus Taylor has a couple of votes less than Susan Ley and therefore he won't challenge. And that's the outcome that we had with a different lineup, like there's a couple of MPs obviously left since then. But, you know, Susan Ley won narrowly when she took the leadership. and Angus Taylor narrowly missed out. We're still at that point, but I think that the right faction is kind of waiting for nature to take its course, so to speak, with Susan Ley.
MACDONALD: It is 20 minutes past nine. You're listening to Mornings on 702. Sam Maiden is here from News.com. And Susan Templeman, the Labor MP for Macquarie. The Reserve Bank of Australia meets tomorrow. The markets seem to be pricing in an expectation of a rate increase. Now, Susan, you said earlier that the Labor government is doing everything it can to deal with the cost of living. But doesn't the fact that we're here demonstrate that there is actually more the government could be doing to deal with the cost of living?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, it certainly demonstrates there's a need for us to continue doing things. You know, we are still in a better place than we were when we won office in 2022. Inflation is significant lower, significantly lower, and we've got very good employment figures. Inflation has come down from where it was.
MACDONALD: But you do acknowledge inflation is going up at the moment?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, the latest data unfortunately did show an increase and it was not unexpected but it's certainly not wanted and that obviously has consequences for people and it'll be one of the things that is very top of mind as the budget preparation goes, because all along the way we have worked hard to tackle inflation. That includes making big savings from the budget. I think it's around about $114 billion that we have made in savings in our first term of government, in our first budgets. and in our one following the election.
MACDONALD: So you could be doing more because I guess that's the question here. Like inflation doesn't come up out of nowhere and government does play a big part in what cash is floating through the economy.
TEMPLEMAN: Yeah, well, there's two things there. Of course, governments can never go “job done”. You know, the things always shift. You have to be constantly monitoring and adjusting and going, right, we need to do more. I suspect very much as the Reserve Bank takes the same approach. It constantly monitors what's happening and we'll see what its decision is. But there will, the budget coming up is our opportunity to once again make those decisions that reset and allow us to get things closer to where we would like them to be. And that's obviously inflation in the 2% to 3% range. I think this thing about government funding, it's really clear that the Reserve Bank has given, in recent statements, they haven't identified public spending or government policy as the source of this persistent price pressure. No, that's not been the message. We had three interest rate cuts last year. That shows that what we've done has had an effect. But you always have to be mindful. And as I say, it is, you can have any conversation in any part of my electorate and it's clear that cost of living remains something that weighs on families and people. So of course we have to keep looking at it.
MACDONALD: Sam Maiden, I mean, Susan Templeman may be correct in identifying the reasons the Reserve Bank has pointed to around inflation numbers going up. But that doesn't, it's not a kind of get out of jail free card for the government on this, is it?
MAIDEN: No. I mean, there's ongoing concerns that the government's failed to rein in spending. Reining in spending is always difficult and controversial because people's idea in the electorate sometimes about reining in spending is, you know, touching some tiny little thing that wouldn't raise money. Obviously, they need to take stronger action than that. And obviously, it's always tricky because a lot of the biggest expenditure is on things like hospitals and health and welfare and issues like that. So it is tricky, it's not easy but I think that there is a feeling that the government hasn't done enough and there's concern about that and you know if the Nationals and the Coalition weren't conducting some sort of public freakout in the town square we'd probably have a bit more attention on it.
MACDONALD: It's 25 minutes past nine, the next news headlines coming up very soon. Susan Templeman as I'm talking to you a few people getting in touch asking me to ask for your position on the upcoming visit of the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. People seem quite concerned about this, the timing of it, the likely impact it might have on social cohesion. What's your view? Are you happy for him to come and visit Australia?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, I think Australians need to remember that we have had the worst ever terrorist attack on our soil and it was targeted at Jewish Australians and they are hurting and this visit is to support them through a really difficult time. And what an opportunity it is for us to show, get away from this binary thing where, you know, something's good or it's bad and recognise the complexities of the world in which we live and show that we can be grown up about this and agree to disagree in a very agreeable way so that we are enhancing our social cohesion here, not creating even greater divides.
MACDONALD: And do you think this visit will enhance social cohesion?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, I think it's important for Jewish Australians that their pain is acknowledged and recognised. And in that context, of course, a senior figure is going to be welcome in this country to do that. It's not here to discuss Middle East politics. It's not part of that process. This is a very human thing that's happening. But can I say, if we also believe in a two-state solution, which I certainly do, and which the government certainly does. You need to have these dialogues. You need to be able to treat people as human beings. So I completely understand how people are, you know, thinking around this in lots of ways. And I'd say to people, this is a really good opportunity for us to demonstrate our maturity as a democracy, to be able to allow someone to provide support to Jewish Australians who want really want to feel the love from Israel and are feeling really insecure now as you can imagine any group would who's been through something, this sort of atrocity.
MACDONALD: Susan Templeman, Sam Maiden, thank you very much.
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