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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. this is 7am.

The resignation of former Liberal Minister, Alan Tudge, marks the end of one controversial political career. But it's also throwing open new challenges for the party, and Opposition Leader.

Speculation is swirling about who will be selected to run for Tudge’s seat in Melbourne at the upcoming by-election, and while the pressure is on for the Liberal party to pick a woman, factional infighting means nothing is guaranteed.

So can the Liberals retain the seat of Aston — which it barely clung on to at the last election — or is the seat within Labor’s grasp?

Today, Columnist for The Saturday Paper, Paul Bongiorno, on the political test looming in Aston.

It’s Friday, February 17.

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RUBY:

Paul, The Liberal Party is facing an important test right now, and it's all because last week Alan Tudge, the former minister of Human Services, announced his resignation. Can you take me to the moment that he resigned and was this unexpected, or was it something that was very much on the cards?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby pressure has been building on Alan Tudge for years, and many were surprised he even ran at the last election. There was a definite sense of inevitability about him going. It was just a question of when. In fact, he told Peter Dutton in early January that it was his intention to quit at the end of this sitting fortnight.

Archival tape – The Speaker:

“The member for Aston has indicated to me he would seek the call and I'd give him the call now.”

PAUL:

But last week he did face the music as it were, announcing his decision to go, on the floor of the House itself.

Archival tape – Alan Tudge:

“Well, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to inform the House that I'll be resigning from Parliament effective from next week.”

PAUL:

He focussed on his family, saying his children had put up with abuse that no teenagers should have to face, including death threats.

Archival tape – Alan Tudge:

“It's not been an easy decision for me, but it is necessary for my health and for my family, amongst other reasons, and I certainly have not taken this decision lightly. My daughters, who are 18 and 16, know nothing other than their Dad being away. They've had to put up with things that no teenager should have to, including death threats, the most recent of which was last week.”

PAUL:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rose in response and thanked him for having the decency to resign in the Parliament and commended his commitment to his children.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“We have political differences and I'm not going to… including about some elements of his service, and then at that point gilding the lily there and he wouldn't want me to either. But I thank him for his service in this house.”

PAUL:

But the PM could be forgiven for finding it hard to come up with too many other plaudits for Tudge’s time as a minister and MP.

RUBY:

And as you say Paul, calls for his resignation, they've been coming for years now and really in the background, there's both the Robodebt scandal as well as his relationship with his former media adviser Rochelle Miller, and the question of whether or not that relationship was — as she alleges – abusive.

PAUL:

Well, the announcement came just one week after he faced serious questions at the Robodebt royal commission. He was human services minister at the time. The true cost of the unlawful system was being exposed. And he struggled at those hearings to explain why that hadn't caused him to ask further questions about whether the scheme was legal or even whether it was right. Instead, his office conducted an unsavoury media strategy. His former media adviser, who you mentioned Ruby, Rachelle Miller, gave damning evidence at the Robodebt Commission that Tudge was relentless in trying to shut down criticism of the illegal scheme by unscrupulously releasing private details of whistleblower victims, even in one instance after one of them had committed suicide. Miller previously went on national television to say Tudge had emotionally and physically abused her in their consensual affair. Well, Tudge still firmly denies those allegations. But Rachelle Miller's treatment in his office, and subsequently in Michaelia Cash's, resulted in a taxpayer funded payout of $650,000.

RUBY:

And so now Tudge’s resignation, it presents this huge political test for the Liberal Party, and for the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. There's going to be a by-election in Tudge’s seat which will be the first electoral contest since last year's federal election. So when will that happen, Paul? And do we know who will be running to replace Tudge?

PAUL:

Well, that's right. Tudge vacates the seat of Aston in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. For the past three decades it's been safe Liberal. But at last year's election there was a huge 11.6% swing against him. He hung on with preferences from Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer's parties. But the margin is now a slender 2.8%, and during the November Victorian election it proved hostile territory for the Liberals. According to the director of the research group RedBridge, Kos Samaras, based on the state results, if the voting pattern in the area were repeated at this by-election, Federal Labor would win by 500 votes. Well, at the very least it shows voters within the federal seat have no innate aversion to voting Labor.

Speaker Milton Dick, doesn't want to delay naming the date of the by-election. He was waiting on Tudge to formally resign. The Speaker’s of the view that constituents should not be left without a representative any longer than necessary. So it could happen very quickly within the next month or so.

As to who runs, that's the first major test for Peter Dutton and the Opposition. There was early speculation that Josh Frydenberg, the former treasurer, could try to return to Parliament through the seat, but that's being hosed down by Frydenberg himself, briefing journalists and his former colleagues. Dutton has told the Victorian Liberals they must select a high profile woman candidate. It seems, Ruby, that's one message the Liberal leader has clearly got from the drubbing the party received at the last election from women voters, and particularly at the hands of independent women candidates who snatched their once safe seats. But worryingly for Dutton, his allies in the conservative faction led by Michael Sukkar in Victoria, are plumbing hard for a bloke to be candidate. The research suggests if they do that, they'll lose the by-election.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Paul, the by-election that will be held in today's seat of Aston, it's the Liberals to lose, but there is no doubt that it will also be a test for the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. He's riding high at the opinion polls right now. But it's going to be interesting to see whether or not that can be reproduced at the ballot box.

PAUL:

It is, and as Anthony Albanese reminded his party room on Tuesday, no government has won a seat from an Opposition at a by-election since 1920. And despite the Prime Minister's early expectation management, Labor will field a candidate, likely to be Mary Doyle, who ran for the party last year, she narrowly missed out, despite Tudge suffering that huge swing as we saw. And Labor, I'm told, will give the by-election a red hot go.

Focus group research done by RedBridge has found there's a lot of positive sentiment in the electorate for the Government. Typical reaction from respondents is “I feel like adults are in charge again, or at least they're not stuffing up.” And most tellingly, even though rising inflation and interest rates are biting, Labor's short time in office is seen as a mitigating factor. They haven't been there very long. Another regular sentiment from respondents.

RUBY:

Okay, but Paul, no one is happy to see spiralling inflation and interest rates that keep rising. So how are both the government and the Opposition representing themselves as the ones who can ultimately stem rising costs for people?

PAUL:

Well, Dutton unremarkably sees the one big issue going for him at the moment, is the cost of living and rising home loan costs. He's desperate to hang all the blame on the government, and for the second sitting week running, the Coalition has ended practically every question with the slogan “Why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?”

Archival tape – Sussan Ley:

“Why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?”

Archival tape – Angus Taylor:

“Why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?”

Archival tape – Angie Bell:

“Why do Australians always pay more under Labor?”

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“Every decision Labor has made has increased inflation and pushed interest rates higher than they need to be. Prime Minister, is this why interest rates are always higher under Labor?”

Archival tape – Jim Chalmers:

“It was higher under Howard!”

Archival tape – The Speaker:

“The Treasurer…”

PAUL:

But this slogan doesn't bear a lot of scrutiny. Dutton's claim, for example, that interest rates are always higher under Labor was quickly dismissed by the Treasurer and Prime Minister, when they reminded him that rates were higher under the Howard Government, at the very time when Dutton was assistant treasurer. This could be a potent strategy for the Opposition. 41% of voters in Aston have mortgages. And with the median age of 40 in the electorate, there are plenty of families feeling the pinch. Of course, you do have to wonder how committed the Coalition is to reducing costs for households. Late last year, they voted against the domestic gas price cap and the $1.5 billion energy relief package. Albanese made this point in answers, and you can bet your bottom dollar Ruby, that it'll feature heavily in Labor's by-election advertising.

RUBY:

Yeah, there's no doubt about that, Paul. And even though the Government are doing well in the polls right now, we know that cost of living pressures can turn voter sentiment very quickly. So what will the government need to actually deliver on cost of living before the by-election?

PAUL:

Well, there are some measures that have already been introduced, but will take a while for the effects to be felt. Certainly won't be felt by the time of the by-election. Albanese pointed to a few cheaper medicines, cheaper child care, energy price relief, paid parental leave, and fee free TAFE. Opening the way for more higher paid skilled workers. While his next major challenge, of course, will be to bring the cost of seeing a doctor down with the government's Medicare reform package, probably to be unveiled in May. Anthony Albanese, of course, knows that the cost of living is the central issue. Last week he told Labor MPs they need to, quote, “keep campaigning on the cost of living, and show that the Government is mindful of the painful experiences of the Australian people.”

And Ruby I have to tell you the Opposition this week in Parliament continued its determination not to be a helping hand. It refused to support Labor's signature emissions reduction package, and walked out on the multi-billion dollar housing package when it went to the vote. Dutton is, as Albanese told his caucus, playing straight out of the Tony Abbott playbook. There's certainly nothing new on offer from the Liberals, Well then again it worked for Abbott. But ten years later the signs are that the electorate has moved on. Well, we'll see.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you so much for your time.

PAUL:

Thank you, Ruby. Bye.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has shockingly resigned after 8 years of leadership – despite the prospect of a second independence referendum looming.

Sturgeon had recently been attempting to enshrine trans-inclusionary rights in Scottish law, but had been hounded by critical media coverage and political opposition.

She is the longest-serving First Minister, and was the first woman to hold the position.

And…

The amount of ice in the seas around Antarctica has hit the lowest levels ever recorded.

The measurements, taken by the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, reveal a sudden and rapid melting of ice sheets in the seas around the south pole – a sign that weather patterns might be shifting in the Southern Ocean as a result of climate change.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper.

It’s produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, Alex Tighe, Zoltan Fecso,
and Cheyne Anderson.

Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

Our editor is Scott Mitchell. Sarah McVeigh is our Head of Audio. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Mixing this week by Laura Hancock and Atticus Bastow.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

I’m Ruby Jones, see you next week.

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