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Annabel Crabb's Civic Duty - Season 1 Episode 2
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00:00A group largely unseen and unknown to the general public.
00:03A body of professional journalists
00:05known as the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery.
00:09When the brand-new Parliament of Australia
00:11opened for business in 1901,
00:13it was a cramped and ramshackle affair.
00:16Prime Minister Edmund Barton
00:18slept in the attic of the temporary Melbourne building.
00:23And offices were in short supply.
00:26But premium space was made for the 31 newspaper reporters
00:31who made up the press gallery.
00:34Why?
00:35They were the vital conduit of information
00:37about Australia's new democracy to its people.
00:40For the political journalist,
00:42friends in high places are essential,
00:44enemies in high places unavoidable.
00:46These pressmen breathed the same air as the politicians,
00:49and their stories, whether positive or negative,
00:52dominated Australia's understanding of politics
00:55when their newspapers came out every morning.
00:58As George Reid, our fourth PM,
01:00is said to have implored the pressmen in 1904...
01:03Praise me if you can.
01:04Blame me if you must.
01:05But for heaven's sake, don't leave me alone.
01:10But this cosy arrangement was upended in 1939
01:13by a disruptor, Warren Denning,
01:15appointed by the ABC
01:17to be the gallery's first ever radio reporter.
01:20Good afternoon.
01:21This is the ABC from Parliament House Canberra.
01:24The gentlemen at the press gallery were furious.
01:26Denning would be able to broadcast breaking news straight away,
01:29scooping the newspaper hacks,
01:31who were slowed down by the laborious process
01:33of typesetting, printing and delivering newspapers.
01:37The pressmen revolted,
01:39demanding that Prime Minister Robert Menzies
01:41do two briefings a day,
01:43one for all of them, one for Denning.
01:45I ought to begin by asking you whether the procedures
01:48that I've adopted in the past
01:50are satisfactory to you.
01:52And for six long weeks, Menzies obliged.
01:55Eventually, the pressmen twigged to the fact
01:57that they were handing their rival
01:59a daily exclusive with the PM
02:01and sheepishly dropped their demands.
02:03But the episode shows you how powerful the gallery was,
02:06how protective of its patch
02:08and keen to guard its exclusivity.
02:10And how anxious a PM was not to antagonise these men,
02:14his primary means of getting his words and plans
02:17out to the Australian people.
02:19It's pointless having a discussion about Australian democracy.
02:48without considering how Australians find out about it.
02:53And there's no doubt that for much of our history,
02:55reporting politics has been a closed shop,
02:59full of complicated and, at times,
03:02mutually parasitic relationships.
03:05Like so many powerful elements of our democracy,
03:09this dynamic isn't covered by our Constitution
03:13and neither is the major technological upheaval
03:17that, over the course of this young century,
03:21has blown up so many of the presumptions
03:24on which these relationships rested for so long.
03:28Everything's moving so fast
03:31that there's barely a second to take stock
03:34of just how much it's all changed.
03:38Can you start by just describing what the daily cycle
03:43of political journalism was like when you started out?
03:47It was a discernible news cycle.
03:49It began in the morning when the newspaper
03:51thumped onto the front lawn.
03:52If a political leader wanted to get a message out,
03:55they very much might put the story in the Daily Telegraph
03:58or put the story in the Australian newspaper.
04:01You opened it up, you unfurled it,
04:03you saw what the story was above the fold,
04:05what was important to that day.
04:07You still had, I think, a landscape
04:09you could describe as having centres of gravity.
04:12There were different outlets that were influential
04:16in slightly different ways,
04:18but there was a national conversation.
04:20Even if people had different political perspectives,
04:22everyone was sort of eating at the same table.
04:25So what does the political news cycle look like these days
04:28and how does that affect the press gallery's role?
04:31The operating environment is so fractured now
04:33and the idea of what constitutes political news
04:38is the constant refreshment of the story of the day.
04:42Everyone talks about the 24-hour media cycle.
04:45It's not even 24 hours, it's just now.
04:48Well, I certainly think that the 24-7 media cycle
04:52and the rise of social media
04:55coarsened our public discourse.
04:58I mean, you have a look at TalkBack.
04:59TalkBack gave the average person the chance
05:02to get on the air and say what they think.
05:05Now everyone's able to do that through a million different apps.
05:07Each individual now can curate for themselves their intake.
05:12And what that means is that no-one's curation
05:15will be the same as someone else's.
05:17It's made it harder and harder for clear, rational, principled voices to be heard.
05:24There's no such thing as the audience now.
05:26It's so fragmented.
05:28There are so many different audiences.
05:30Politicians have to use every available medium to get their message out.
05:36Issues that you might have thought would command the broad focus of the nation
05:42can't really do that in the same way.
05:49What is a journalist's primary aim?
05:52To present the facts of any given situation as accurately and as responsible as he possibly can.
05:57To always remain an outsider.
05:59Never join the mob.
06:01It's a funny sort of relationship between pressmen and politicians.
06:03I suppose you'd say it's almost a classic example of the attraction and repulsion of love-hate.
06:09Never distort news to please people,
06:11whether to boss or the readers or the listeners.
06:15The zookeepers rule is if you work in a zoo,
06:17don't try to be friendly with the animals.
06:19It's a tricky rule to follow when the zookeepers and animals mingle so freely together.
06:25Australia is the only Western democracy in which the press cohort has always shared quarters with MPs.
06:35Okay, so Nikki, you arrived in this chamber in 1974, yes?
06:39Mm-hmm.
06:40You weren't sitting here, obviously.
06:41Definitely not.
06:42It's such a squeezy little chamber, isn't it?
06:46And the press gallery is tiny.
06:48Well, it didn't seem so to me at the time and it was filled almost every day.
06:55So Parliament was the centre of the universe, if you like.
07:00And what was the press gallery like when you arrived?
07:03It was still mostly male.
07:06There were only six women journalists in the press gallery
07:10and I was probably the youngest and there were very few ethnics around at that time.
07:18How did it work?
07:19It was quite a closed shop back then, right?
07:21You had to have an office in the building if you were going to be a political correspondent.
07:27But because this is such a small place, there was nowhere for the politicians to hide.
07:34So you got to build up relationships and you mixed so often and so freely.
07:44You could just go down to the Prime Minister's office and say,
07:47I've got this story that's going to kill you.
07:49What do you say about it?
07:51In that era, what did politicians and journalists or media organisations rely on each other for?
07:59Well, one could not survive without the other.
08:03They needed us as much as we needed them.
08:06If they wanted to get their stories out, they had to deal with us.
08:11And we needed stories.
08:13If a Prime Minister or a Minister wants to get a story out,
08:16they'll make sure it has exclusivity.
08:19They'll give it to a particular journalist in a particular newspaper
08:23or a particular television station or a particular radio station for a particular reason.
08:28They know it'll start a cycle, the news cycle, and that people will necessarily talk about it through the day.
08:33I think politicians use radio hosts and radio hosts use politicians.
08:38It's a very equal kind of relationship in that regard.
08:41Tony Abbott has come on my show many times to talk about things that Tony Abbott wants to talk about.
08:46So the cold drop comes to you without much work done at all.
08:50You can sit back with hands behind the head and try, there's a good story,
08:55and then smash it out and away it goes.
08:57But equally there have been times when Tony Abbott doesn't want to talk about something
09:01and I've used that association to force him to talk about it.
09:04The better way is getting the story they don't want out.
09:07That's the good story.
09:09Let's not overlook that quid pro quos could go on.
09:14And the problem when the quid pro quo involves information and the releasing of information
09:19is you open the door really to political manipulation.
09:23I'll give you this, you'll bury that.
09:25Well gentlemen of the press, I understand you have a pre-dilection for press conferences
09:30and now for the next 30 minutes I'm in your hands while we have one.
09:34Like any high stakes co-dependent relationship, this one can pan out in a variety of ways.
09:40Sometimes, careful negotiation yields a mutually beneficial outcome.
09:46How long is it there for?
09:47Oh two or three minutes off.
09:48At all.
09:50But look, we will be doing the something on the dam for God's sake.
09:54Yes, yes, certainly it is.
09:56Sometimes, there's a period of no speakies.
09:59Larry Oaks, Network 10 Prime Minister, I'm tempted to ask the same question again
10:03for the third time because we still haven't got an answer.
10:05Clearly, there is a capacity for a political leader, particularly, you know, a Prime Minister
10:11or an opposition leader, to ice a journalist, right?
10:15Just put them on ice. They get nothing.
10:18And sometimes, there's no option but open combat.
10:22Mr Hawke, could I ask you whether you feel a little embarrassed tonight
10:25at the blood that's on your hands?
10:26It's a ridiculous question, you know, it's ridiculous. I have no blood on my hands.
10:30Politics is a combative business and obviously, if you're a journalist, sometimes you have
10:37to ask tricky questions and sometimes that can really get under politicians' skins.
10:42Now, sometimes it's justified, you know, maybe sometimes it's not justified but, you know,
10:47there is nothing more fascinating in finding out what actually makes a politician completely
10:52fly off the handle.
10:53Bullshit comes from the press gallery.
10:56Do you have any favourite kind of journo v politician moments?
11:02Look, I did very much enjoy the Mark Riley, Tony Abbott stare off. That was absolutely sensational.
11:10Mark Riley wanted to talk about my visit, my recent visit to Afghanistan.
11:16Hello.
11:17G'day, Tony.
11:18And he wanted to create a gotcha moment.
11:20It's over here, Tony, just next to me.
11:23There was no ambush. I had Tony's press secretary in my office for 20 minutes showing them the
11:29vision. He was being told about an operation that went horribly wrong and cost the life of
11:37an Australian soldier. The commander was explaining where things had gone wrong.
11:42And this was Tony Abbott's response.
11:49Now, what Mark Riley tried to do was to take out of context that expression shit happens
11:56and present me as somehow making light of the death of Lance Corporal Jared McKinney.
12:03Honestly, it was a contemptible thing to do.
12:06Imagine if Julia Gillard had said that. This is what I thought. Imagine if Kevin Rudd had said that.
12:11It took me quite a while to work out exactly what he was driving at.
12:17Well. Mm-hmm.
12:20Well, that's about the day that Jared McKinney was killed.
12:23My question to Tony was, well, that was it.
12:26Yeah, look, you've taken this out of context. You weren't there.
12:30I would never seek to make light of the death of an Australian soldier.
12:35OK, well, tell me, what's the context? And if it's out of context, what is the context?
12:45You're not saying anything, Tony?
12:48I was just bemused. I mean, I think you can see it in my face. I thought, you've arranged the time for this interview.
12:54You know what I was going to ask you about, and you don't have any response.
12:57And I thought, what do I do here? What the hell? Is he going to thump you?
13:02I tell him to get stuffed. I get up and walk out. I hit him. I just thought he was buffering.
13:09Tony was thinking of punching him. He was thinking of punching Mark Riley.
13:14Slog him in the head. And all he could think was, don't punch him.
13:19So if you're wondering what was going on in Tony Abbott's head, I mean to tell you, that's what he was thinking about.
13:24So I thought silence was the best response.
13:27Closed mouth gathers no foot. Nothing else to say, Tony.
13:35OK.
13:37Just turn the cameras off.
13:40Now you know. That's a scoop for you.
13:44I don't think our relationship was ever quite the same after that.
13:47At the end of the day, look, if you're going to give it, you're going to get it.
13:52And if you're going to give it, you can't be upset about occasionally getting it back.
13:57And if you are that sort of person, well, you're not in the right place, Toto.
14:01Sometimes the tension between politicians and political journalists
14:05arises from their mutual conviction that they could do each other's job better.
14:10Lose wire.
14:11And there is in Australia's early history
14:14one utterly spectacular example of this exact phenomenon.
14:19For the first 13 years of the Australian Federation,
14:22readers of the Morning Post in London
14:24enjoyed a spicy anonymous weekly column summarising the events of the Antipodean Parliament.
14:30Given that the nation splashed through ten prime ministerships in that time,
14:35it was action packed.
14:37The writer was coyly badged as our own correspondent,
14:41but was incredibly well informed and articulate and could be harsh.
14:45Mr Deakin may well view the position before him with rueful solicitude.
14:49Harumphed the correspondent in 1903,
14:53after Prime Minister Alfred Deakin came perilously close
14:56to losing the federal election of that year.
14:59His own party in his own state, in spite of his appeals,
15:03flung away half a dozen seats and imperiled as many more.
15:07Ouch. Poor old Deakin.
15:09He must have flinched to read such words.
15:12Actually, he probably didn't.
15:14Because, in fact, Deakin wrote those words.
15:17That's right.
15:19In Australia, our own correspondent was better known as
15:23our second prime minister, Alfred Deakin.
15:26Lawyer, vegan, seance fanatic,
15:29moonlighting as a commentator on his own parliament
15:32for the handsome salary of £500 a year.
15:35More than he was paid as prime minister.
15:38Mr Prime Minister, could you elaborate on what Mr Berry has said?
15:42For all of the accusations over the years of political journalists
15:46and prime ministers being in each other's pockets,
15:49this is the only case where it's because they're the same person.
15:55But in 2025, political journalism is facing a more profound disruption
16:01than the odd prime minister in disguise.
16:04Cheers, Prime Minister, for coming to the pub.
16:07Welcome to It's A Lot podcast, Prime Minister.
16:09Great to be here, Abby.
16:11People listen to my podcast, for example,
16:13I do maths recaps, I do blow job tips,
16:16I interview the prime minister.
16:18You know, it's a spectrum.
16:19Politicians these days realise that now,
16:22to get in front of people, particularly the people
16:24who aren't already politically engaged,
16:26the ones who you've got to win over if you want to win an election,
16:29you need to go to them.
16:30This budget is all about helping with the cost of living,
16:33strengthening Medicare and building Australia's future.
16:36We're legit pulling up a parliament house
16:38and we have no idea what we're getting ourselves into today.
16:42For the first time, influencers were invited to this year's budget.
16:45So I was invited to the budget lock-up as an influencer,
16:49as a podcaster.
16:50I didn't go because my theory was I can read it on the internet.
16:55Why would I go there?
16:56I'm not driving to Canberra.
16:58I have things to do.
17:00Yes, that's what we need more of in hard-nosed budget analysis
17:03is social media influencers.
17:05Today I am interviewing the prime minister
17:07and so we will get ready together.
17:09Many of these creators don't necessarily come
17:11from traditional journalistic backgrounds
17:13and so people have criticised them for not applying scrutiny
17:16to what the government is necessarily putting out.
17:19You know, people might derisively call them cheerleaders.
17:21The Labor Party just announced $1 billion for mental health.
17:26What's the problem having people there that maybe you don't see as qualified,
17:29but they have the ability to translate their budget into terms
17:33that people can understand?
17:35I mean, what is an influencer going to do in the lock-up?
17:38What, pour through the impairment on assets on government warships?
17:43I don't know.
17:44It feels quite elitist to be so in shock and horrified
17:49that influencers would be allowed anywhere near Parliament House
17:53as though influencers aren't citizens of this country.
17:56There are always going to be things that political journalists know more about
18:01in terms of getting information or fact-checking or things like that,
18:05but it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
18:10It's not that.
18:11It's that the vocation is different.
18:14It's that the task is different.
18:17I know that there were some people, probably mainstream media people,
18:20who were like,
18:21This is our domain!
18:23No, it's not yours.
18:24You don't own it.
18:25We live in a democracy.
18:27And influencers have become players in that political game.
18:33Politicians have fanned out across social media platforms
18:37in search of voters who aren't looking for them.
18:40On YouTube, the most watched election interview with Anthony Albanese
18:45was one he sought out with cult video artist Aussie Man Reviews.
18:50Good shit. Thank you, Albo.
18:51Thanks, mate.
18:52It is a fundamentally different thing to sit down for an interview
18:56on 7.30 and be interrogated in that way
19:01than it is to sit down with someone who is cheerleading
19:05for a particular side of politics or a particular party
19:08or a particular outcome.
19:09When you start to blur those things, that's a net loss for democracy,
19:15and we have started seeing that in America.
19:17In America, the disruption of the press corps is more explicitly orchestrated.
19:30For more than a century, the pecking order of journalists
19:47in the world-famous White House briefing room
19:50has been managed by the White House Correspondents Association.
19:56But President Trump, in his second term, has asserted control.
20:00He banned the veteran-associated press organisation
20:04because it refused to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico
20:07to the Gulf of America, as per the presidential decree.
20:12We are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico
20:16to the Gulf of America.
20:19He's also opened up the press room
20:21to influencers and partisan campaign groups
20:25who now jostle for access with legacy media outlets.
20:30Here's where all of the anchors are going to air.
20:33Yep, we've got your Fox News here.
20:35Uh-huh.
20:36CNN has two tents.
20:38Yeah, you've got your ABC, your Newsmax, your NBC.
20:41Monica Page Baldwin is the White House Correspondent
20:44for the pro-Trump youth activist group Turning Point USA.
20:49From the White House four front lines with Turning Point,
20:51I'm Monica Page.
20:52Which has been credited with boosting
20:54Donald Trump's youth vote at the 2024 election
20:57by as much as 10%.
21:01So, welcome to Pebble Beach.
21:03Pebble Beach? Is that what it's called?
21:05Yes. I believe there were Pebbles at one point,
21:07but now I don't think that there's any Pebbles here.
21:09It's all just mulch.
21:10But, yeah, this is where everyone works out of.
21:11You're working in the heat, the freezing cold,
21:14rainstorms, thunderstorms, lightning, you name it,
21:17you're working out of these tents for the most part.
21:19But, yeah, this is the West Wing of the White House sort of deal.
21:22So, how did Turning Point come to have a spot
21:25in the White House media corp?
21:27So, you have your CNN, your Fox, your MSNBC.
21:29They're all in there.
21:30But there was never a spot for new media.
21:32And now, with this current administration,
21:34they've kind of said we're going to add a new media spot
21:37in the press briefing room.
21:38And we recently got access to be in that new media section,
21:41which has been incredible.
21:42Part of the new media seed is so that everyday Americans
21:45across the country have a voice in this room.
21:47Is it hostile in there when all of these new media Arabists
21:51turn up and start demanding space?
21:54Yeah, so the dynamic is okay.
21:57You can kind of feel a little bit of tension in there,
21:59especially within the first couple of press briefings
22:02when this administration returned.
22:04Monica.
22:06So, what are some of the other new media organizations
22:08that have got a place here now at the White House
22:11that didn't have five years ago?
22:13There's a number of people with podcasts or radio shows
22:17or streaming outlets.
22:19You've got your Lindell TV, which is Mike Lindell of MyPillow.
22:23Oh, that's the pillow guy.
22:24I'm bringing you exciting new products, overstock specials,
22:28and close-out deals you won't find anywhere else.
22:31Got his own TV crew here and reporters here.
22:33Right.
22:34But we have a president right now who I truly believe
22:37is doing his best to unify the country
22:39and make sure that everybody has a voice.
22:42But, see, you sound like a campaigner now.
22:44I saw yesterday when you were delivering questions
22:46to President Trump.
22:47He said, oh, I love that question.
22:49On the southern border, you've had record low numbers
22:51for the month of May.
22:52What do you attribute that success to?
22:54I like you.
22:55Who are you with?
22:56Turning Point USA, sir.
22:57Well, they're very good.
22:58Turning Point.
22:59The journalist in me goes, oh, my God, that's a disaster
23:02because I don't want a politician ever
23:04to love a question that I ask them.
23:06So how does that work as a journalist for you?
23:09I mean, of course, with every administration,
23:11there's something that I will disagree on,
23:12including this one.
23:13So it's not like I'm just reporting
23:14on all the glorious things that are happening.
23:16I think it is important to acknowledge
23:18what people find negative in this administration
23:20and still giving light to that as much as I am giving
23:23some of the positive.
23:24So when you looked at, as an outsider,
23:27the press corps as it functioned
23:30under the previous administration,
23:32did you think of it as a neutral kind of body of people?
23:36Well, yes and no, because there were a lot of times
23:40when I was in the press briefing room
23:42and some of the questions that the reporters would ask
23:44would be very, I don't know,
23:46not really in tune with what everyday Americans are feeling.
23:49And it was kind of disheartening to hear questions,
23:52what's Joe Biden's favourite ice cream flavour?
23:54What's he doing this weekend?
23:55So it makes you furious to listen to left-wing journalists
23:59ask about President Biden's taste in ice cream,
24:02and then you get criticised for asking soft questions
24:05or inviting Donald Trump to reflect on his own brilliance.
24:09I mean, is this just...
24:10It's the name of the game.
24:11Right?
24:12It seems like that's the name of the game.
24:14People are just...
24:15They listen to a question or listen to a report
24:18and they immediately place somebody in a box.
24:20They're like, OK, that sounds like a more left-wing question.
24:22You are left-wing media,
24:23I'm not going to consume your information or your media.
24:25OK, you're more right-wing.
24:26Nope, I'm not going to listen to that.
24:28And to me, I'm like,
24:29will there ever be a moment that can unify us
24:31not only as a nation but also in the media?
24:33Ten weeks later,
24:35the argument about who gets to ask questions where
24:39is overtaken by a ghastly act of political violence.
24:44Monica's boss, Charlie Kirk,
24:46is shot dead while speaking at a university in Utah.
24:50Charlie Kirk has been credited with mobilising young people
24:53to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
24:56We are the media now.
24:58Not them.
24:59Their power is fading and waning.
25:02No-one reads their stuff.
25:04Their subscriptions are going down.
25:06In a split second,
25:08the 31-year-old father of two
25:10goes from online disruptor
25:13to conservative martyr.
25:15Kirk's death is a violent escalation
25:18of polarisation in America
25:20where the political extremes
25:22don't just disagree with each other.
25:24They don't even gather in the same places.
25:28When social media started,
25:29it felt like it was going to be the democratisation of news
25:32and it was going to be these sort of,
25:33in a sense,
25:34online town halls that we could debate things.
25:36We think the new landscape is a billion tweets
25:40and it's the democratisation of politics
25:43or the democratisation of the public square.
25:45But now we're beginning to get savvy to the fact
25:49that there are algorithms and all sorts of things
25:52and a lot of what gets out and a lot of what gets shared
25:54and all this sort of stuff is manipulated.
25:57They're not neutral town halls.
25:59They are profit-driven ecosystems
26:01to make a lot of money for the people who own them.
26:04And they know that the way to make the most money
26:07is to get people engaged and outraged.
26:11If you looked at a busload of people,
26:13everyone on their phone,
26:14scrolling through the same platform,
26:16they'd all be seeing completely different things.
26:18They funnel.
26:20So we are being funneled into biases.
26:24These silos are bias.
26:26Both sides think the other is more extreme than it actually is
26:30because they're only hearing from the most extreme on both sides.
26:34There are people who their whole world is shaped
26:40by what the algorithm is serving them.
26:43The more content they can put in front of people,
26:45that gets them angry, the more money they make
26:49because the more people engage with it,
26:51the more they can charge advertisers to be there.
26:54And what that does is it distorts the public discourse.
26:57What has the disruption of reporting around politics in particular
27:03done to your ability to project and win political arguments?
27:10It's made change harder.
27:13And it's made constructing the case for change harder.
27:18And it's made bringing people together harder.
27:24Because the nature of the fragmentation of the media
27:29and what we've seen in terms of different channels of discussion
27:39means that we often, as a society,
27:44are not actually talking to one another
27:47and we're certainly insufficiently listening to one another.
27:50If you feel like everyone's a little bit angrier today,
27:53it's because they legitimately are.
27:55The temptation is to go for highly charged issues,
28:00particularly in a country like the United States
28:03where religion plays a big role,
28:05things that people feel deeply and passionately about
28:07and will get them to the ballot box.
28:09I think one thing in Australia that is so important
28:13is compulsory voting.
28:15So, in America, where that kind of new media works particularly well
28:20is when you have to get people out to vote.
28:23If you can get your whole base out to vote, you win.
28:25And the way to get people out to vote is to get them really, really mad.
28:29Could you explain what effect you think compulsory voting has
28:33on the tenor of political debate?
28:36I think it encourages more likely the forces of moderation
28:40and therefore consensus building within the democracy writ large.
28:44It disadvantages the zealots.
28:46It means that elections are not won or lost at the extremes,
28:49but are won or lost in the centre.
28:51I'll tell you what, I've got friends from all walks of life.
28:55Some of them have got no interest in politics whatsoever
29:00and that is their right.
29:01Do we really want them to vote?
29:03Really?
29:04And again, I'm not 100% sold on my view on this
29:07because I understand that there is an advantage
29:10in getting everyone in there
29:11and I've got American friends who say,
29:13I wish it was the way in our country like it is in yours,
29:16but I don't know.
29:17I guess it's not a perfect system.
29:19Nothing is.
29:20I've sort of come to the conclusion
29:23that we are saved in this country
29:26by the politically disengaged
29:28who are forced to engage at moments.
29:32Globally, compulsory voting is rare,
29:35but our adventures with it began in Queensland,
29:37which in 1915 staged the first election
29:41in the English-speaking world
29:43at which voter attendance was mandatory.
29:46A bold democratic experiment?
29:48No, think more desperate self-preservation tactic
29:52by a man who was in mortal fear of losing power.
29:55You're in the way.
29:56Come on, that's right.
29:57That man was Liberal Queensland Premier Digby Denham.
30:01Businessman, butter entrepreneur, scourge of the union movement.
30:06As the state election approached, Denham had issues.
30:09He was deeply worried about the mobilisation power
30:13of the Queensland trade union movement.
30:15Brisbane was paralysed by striking workers,
30:18and Denham tried everything to break the unions.
30:21He banned protests, armed police with bayonets,
30:25and even tried to borrow troops from a visiting German warship
30:30to help him out.
30:31None of it worked, so he came up with a new plan.
30:34A cunning one.
30:36He made voting compulsory.
30:39If the more moderately inclined were forced to vote,
30:42Denham figured, he might stand a chance.
30:46The good news? Turnout was strong.
30:48Nearly 90%.
30:50The bad news?
30:52Denham got smashed.
30:54Not only were the parliamentary ranks of his party halved,
30:57but the Premier lost his own seat,
31:00and there wouldn't be another Liberal government for 42 years.
31:05The great thing about, you know, cunning plans in Australian politics
31:10when political leaders go,
31:12ha-ha, I have a cunning plan like Digby Denham,
31:14is that they often end up as an exploding cigar.
31:17Denham's gambit didn't work out as planned.
31:20But the system stayed put,
31:22and in 1924, compulsory voting was adopted nationally.
31:27Ever since then,
31:29Australian politicians have had a very particular obligation
31:33to pursue and convince every single voter,
31:37even the ones who aren't interested.
31:39It's triggered a constant cycle of disruption.
31:43Right, OK.
31:44Every time a new form of media emerges,
31:47politicians are obliged to learn how to use it.
31:51A century ago,
31:53it was all about the ability to yell at crowds
31:55whilst balanced on a stump or the back of a truck.
31:58Mr Hawkins is the one to represent you.
32:00He is fit to represent you in every possible way.
32:03People attended in mass numbers public meetings.
32:06So if you look back, say, at Andrew Fisher,
32:09Prime Minister, on three occasions,
32:11when he went to a town like Gympie to campaign,
32:14you'd have mass crowds of more than 10,000 people.
32:17I don't think anyone would have been at home.
32:19Everyone went.
32:20So once parliament was being reported on,
32:24the incentives for the people in the business of politics
32:27to deliver a terrific speech that could be read in a newspaper
32:32and could be re-read and re-quoted
32:35becomes part of the language of politics,
32:38part of the presentation of politics,
32:40part of the representation of politics.
32:42Once you hear the voice, which is radio,
32:47you get almost a different idea of politics
32:52from the elector's perspective as well.
32:54My opponents in parliament have done their very best
32:59and only narrowly failed.
33:01So R.G. Menzies, good radio voice, Ben Cheffley,
33:06old-style Labor bloke, looks terrific on the stump,
33:09is really, really good in a smoke-filled caucus room,
33:12but does not persuade you on radio.
33:15Fellow citizens, the war is over.
33:19Then along comes television.
33:21By the time you get to Gough,
33:22he's kind of got a bit of the Menzies in him
33:24because he's obviously been raised in that era
33:26and he could also preen for the camera.
33:28We see the allegation that Bill Hayden
33:31had stolen some Treasury documents.
33:34War!
33:36Like Graham Kennedy in a way.
33:38You know, grew up on the stage
33:39and as soon as they pointed a camera at him,
33:41everything worked at the same time.
33:43And then you've got Bob Hawke watching,
33:45Whitlam from the sidelines saying,
33:46I can make the camera work for me.
33:49For generations,
33:50even as the technology gently evolved
33:52from notebooks to microphones to cameras...
33:55Smile.
33:56You've got your photograph.
33:57Australian elections were fought in essentially the same way.
34:01One aspiring Prime Minister from the Labor Party,
34:04one from the Liberal Party,
34:05both pitching their visions to the nation
34:08via an accompanying rabble of print, radio and TV reporters,
34:13themselves employed by media proprietors,
34:17whose canny decision to purchase vast, clanking printing presses
34:21or broadcast TV networks
34:23harvested them not only handsome profits,
34:26but intense political power.
34:29Could you compare the old style of media mogul,
34:33you know, your Murdochs and Packers,
34:35with the tech super moguls of today?
34:38Look, I think the moguls of the past in the media,
34:41whether it was, you know, Rupert Murdoch or Kerry Packer or...
34:44You know, they had a big influence on Australian media
34:47and Australian politics,
34:48and obviously Murdoch still does,
34:50but they don't have the influence they used to have.
34:53They still have influence.
34:55They can certainly help shape the agenda.
34:57They can certainly shape how people see what's happening today.
35:01But I think the moguls of, you know,
35:04the Elon Musk and Twitter, for example,
35:07are really quite a different and, I think, more alarming beast.
35:12So what you have is everyone pursuing a profit,
35:16concentrations of power in the hands of relatively few people.
35:20One at least is held accountable to some extent by an ethic,
35:25by a code.
35:27The other thumbs its nodes at all codes
35:31and doesn't really have one to begin with.
35:34If you just look at the dais for Trump's inauguration,
35:38it was the masters of the attentional universe, right,
35:42sitting on the dais.
35:43It was Sundar Pashay of Google.
35:46It was Zuckerberg.
35:47You know, it was Bezos.
35:49It was Musk.
35:50And Trump understands that these platforms control
35:54and shape what people think.
35:56So it's a mutually beneficial relationship.
35:59The only ethic, the only ethos that guides this really, it seems,
36:03is whatever services the profit motive.
36:07The net result for Australia, after a century of awkward codependence
36:13between politicians and political journalists,
36:16both now gamble for wins and losses with moguls they struggle to regulate
36:21according to algorithms they cannot see.
36:24I now don't have to have a conversation with a senior journalist.
36:29I have my own social media platforms and say what I need to say, whack it up online
36:35and the community knows instantly that it's happened and we're in a conversation.
36:40Well, a classic example is this.
36:43In my last media piece, Facebook has 280,000 views.
36:49There's another one, if I go back, 800,000.
36:53Man, that beats a paper for dead.
36:57That beats ABC for dead.
37:00Man, that's gold.
37:01Gold.
37:02For the community independent movement, social media and social media platforms
37:07have been a really effective way of getting a message out
37:10and finding your community.
37:12And we're not reliant on legacy media to talk to our communities.
37:17For the two major parties, disruption means the advance of independence
37:23into parts of their empires they once took for granted.
37:26As an independent, I answer to you, not to a party.
37:29We deserve better representation.
37:31The major parties have failed to deliver.
37:33And we need community independence standing up to best interests
37:36and holding the major parties to account.
37:38Put one on Dai Li here and then number all the boxes.
37:43Political parties have two real tools when it comes to social media.
37:46The first one is the normal, organic posting,
37:48which is the versions of posting like any of us have.
37:50You know, you post an image of yourself doing something.
37:52Go back a bit.
37:59The other tool that they have is paid advertising.
38:02And this is where political parties are able to cash in
38:05on the huge amount of information that all the social media companies
38:09have on each of us.
38:12But the real revolution for political advertising in 2025
38:16isn't in the message or execution.
38:20It's in the targeting.
38:22We saw the Australian political parties
38:24use political advertising on social media more than ever before
38:28because you can incredibly target individual voters
38:32based on things like demographics, your occupation, even your interests.
38:38Because they think that they can reach you at the right time
38:41with the right message to win your vote.
38:43If you're watching your Married at First Sight, you know, online now,
38:47you're watching it in a local sort of...
38:50It's fed to you locally, so it means that you can target by postcode.
38:55You can target by electorate and you can pay a lot less than you used to.
39:02A political campaign can create an ad and say,
39:05OK, I want to reach women ages 25 to 35 who live in Sydney
39:10and have these characteristics.
39:12And then Facebook, using the data that it has in people,
39:15will then show that ad to those people with those characteristics.
39:18So, in this hectic new world where anyone can be a political reporter
39:24and political parties can swarm your device with cheap ads...
39:28A kind one.
39:29..what are the rules?
39:30You can kiss goodbye to the dream of homeownership.
39:32In this wild west of information, is there a sheriff to be seen?
39:38With five weeks to go before the election,
39:41Electoral Commissioner Geoff is requested by a Senate committee
39:45to look into the curious case of the People versus Abbey Chatfield.
39:50There's a new element of electoral matter,
39:53and I just want to understand how the AEC is engaging it,
39:56and that's through influencers and collaborators.
39:59This is something that we haven't really seen before this election.
40:02For example, I know that the Prime Minister put up
40:05three separate collaborative reels on Instagram with Abbey Chatfield,
40:09where they both explicitly promoted the Labor Party
40:12and opposed the Liberal Party.
40:14So, electoral matter.
40:16Geoff Pope is very used to being asked by senators to look into stuff.
40:21We'll have a look at the ones you've highlighted
40:23and we'll consider if there's anything that we might need to adjust,
40:27we'll have a think about that.
40:29Abbey Chatfield, podcaster of maths recaps, intimate coaching
40:34and the odd Prime Ministerial interview,
40:36is very much not used to being investigated by the AEC.
40:42There was an accusation from Jane Hume
40:44that I was being a little bit, you know, secretive
40:49or I'd broken a rule of some kind,
40:51I was being a little bit duplicitous maybe.
40:54Because there's another element to it too.
40:56Obviously, there are some influences that are potentially being paid
41:01to produce political social media.
41:05And if I was paid, then I needed to put an authorisation
41:09from the Labor Party or from the Greens Party.
41:11That little thing at the end of an ad that's like,
41:13authorised by the Australian people on the camera.
41:15One of those things.
41:16And listen, I would have loved to have been paid by the Labor Party.
41:18I would have loved to have been paid by the Greens Party.
41:21What are you talking about?
41:22I would have declared that.
41:23But I wasn't.
41:24I wasn't in their budget.
41:25And then there was an official investigation,
41:27I think they called it.
41:29And that was just so stressful.
41:32I mean, there's a two part test as to whether political advertising
41:35needs to be authorised.
41:37Stressful as all hell.
41:39The first part is actually whether the communication has the dominant purpose
41:44of influencing how a person is going to cast their vote.
41:48And the media made out all day, like if I had done something wrong
41:50and it was found to be wrong by the AEC,
41:52then I would be fucking clink, clink, fucking 20 years in prison,
41:55lose my account, $100,000 fine.
41:57Like, they made out like it was some huge big deal, right?
42:00And it was going to ruin my life.
42:01And oh my God, she's being investigated!
42:03Being investigated!
42:04And the second part test is, is it paid political advertising
42:09or is it being distributed by or on behalf of a disclosure entity,
42:16which in this case would be the Prime Minister or the Labor Party?
42:20The amount of media coverage on this was as though
42:23I had been caught on CCTV murdering someone.
42:27So when you look at that two part test,
42:30we didn't see that what was in that podcast
42:33met the threshold of that two part test.
42:36And then it turns out that the AEC,
42:39even if I had been found guilty, which I wasn't,
42:42I was found innocent, okay,
42:44then all they would do is tell me to not do it again.
42:48Is it journalism or an ad?
42:51If it's a paid ad, it needs to bear an authorisation.
42:55Those garbled postscripts that have kept Australia's small
42:59but distinguished industry of high-speed voiceover artists
43:02in work since time immemorial.
43:04Authorised by Aho's Liberal Canberra.
43:06Authorised by AROG for the Liberal Party Canberra.
43:08Authorised by...
43:09Authorised by...
43:10Authorised by...
43:11Australia Party Brisbane.
43:12Can you explain the level of control that you have over the truth
43:17or otherwise of campaign advertising?
43:20Well, when it comes to campaign advertising and political advertising,
43:23parties and candidates can say whatever they want
43:26and we have no regulatory authority with respect to that.
43:30The parliament's growing band of independents and third parties
43:33are pushing for truth in political advertising laws
43:37to give the AEC more powers.
43:40When you're buying a product or a service,
43:42we have consumer laws that protect us
43:44so that we don't get scammed out of our money
43:47to make sure that what we buy is actually fit for purpose.
43:50But when it comes to our voting rights,
43:52we have no such protection.
43:54So basically advertising in the political context
43:57can be misleading, it can be deceptive.
44:00Who's deciding what's true?
44:02The Liberals would say,
44:04Oh, Liberals are better money managers than Labor.
44:06And Labor would say,
44:07Actually, you have left us with a trillion dollars of debt
44:09and nothing to show for it.
44:10So you could make arguments on both those things
44:13and you should be able to.
44:14So who's going to decide whether one of those is true or not?
44:18This is my concern.
44:19Coalition voters, Labor voters, Greens, One Nation,
44:22all overwhelmingly support truth in political advertising
44:25and I keep pushing, knocking on the door for the government to do it.
44:29Would some sort of truth in political advertising laws
44:32make things easier for the AEC?
44:35No.
44:37Seems very definite. Why not?
44:40We're not the truth police.
44:42And I don't think we should be.
44:44If the AEC was given that responsibility,
44:46my view is it would ruin the AEC's reputation for neutrality.
44:51And our impartiality is just so critical.
44:55We need to preserve that at all costs.
44:57It's up to the voter and it always has been
45:00and it always will be up to the voter
45:03to navigate their way through what they're seeing and hearing
45:07and to make up their own mind.
45:09At last, we find our way to the Australian voter.
45:15Around 18 million of us,
45:18obliged by law to take a ballot paper each election,
45:21free to complete or deface it as we see fit.
45:24Five-week federal election campaign is about to reach its climax.
45:29There are not many places in the world
45:31where you see what we see on our election day.
45:34Australians turning up to cast their vote
45:37or write on the ballot paper that they don't like any of us,
45:39which is their democratic right,
45:41expressing different political views,
45:43but doing so peacefully and respectfully.
45:45We should be really proud of that.
45:47Of all the entities that the wholesale upheaval
45:50of the media universe has disrupted this century,
45:54perhaps the least charted
45:56are the human building blocks of our democracy.
45:59You and how you cast your vote.
46:03And so the counting begins.
46:06Given we all got different values, different opinions,
46:10it's always been that way, always will be that way.
46:12But underpinning all of that,
46:14there should be a common factual basis.
46:16The AEC has started what will be a long night for them.
46:19Fragmented, scattered, stripped of old certainties,
46:23we're voting in a way that's transforming our parliament.
46:27The social media revolution
46:29and the fact there's no longer a common platform for discourse
46:32is slowly contributing to the fracturing of the vote.
46:36The number of independents that have been returned to the crossbench,
46:39we've got Fowler, Curtin, Kuyong, McKellar, Goldstein, Wentworth,
46:43Indy, Warringah, Mayo, Clarke, and then we've got Bradfield.
46:47New technology, new ways to access information
46:50has radically changed the way people look at
46:53how their political system is working.
46:55And with their votes, the people have spoken.
46:58Peter Dutton's lost his seat.
47:00The duopoly of the major parties is breaking down.
47:02The media concentration of the press gallery
47:05is being broken as well.
47:08This could be a big win for Labor.
47:11It is certainly a win.
47:15And beats ABC even dead.
47:18Man, that's gold. Gold.
47:21So you don't need journalists anymore?
47:23No, I need journalists because if you don't have journalists,
47:26if you don't have the fourth estate,
47:28you haven't got a democracy.
47:31This is our question time.
47:33The things Australians think are normal really aren't.
47:37It could never happen in the Danish parliament.
47:39You don't argue with the speaker. Period.
47:42Dismantling the two-party system that's dominated our history.
47:46It would not at all surprise me if we end up in an environment
47:49of just perpetual minority governments.
47:51And a tiny community that changed the course of our nation.
47:55It was a fight.
47:56Fight for land rights.
47:58Next on Civic Duty.
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