Paul Murray:
Thank you so much for watching wherever you happen to be. Remember, you can always send me an email, [email protected]. Joining us right now, Daniel Wild from the IPA. Lovely to see him and of course Chrysten Abraham, who is running as an independent in the Centre Frankston in the upcoming Victorian election. I’m sure she was paying attention to every dot, every colour that was just there when it comes to the local schools. If not, I’ll send you the doc, mate. All right, lovely to see you both. So Daniel, the prime minister, he understands people are still hurting. So I’m such a great bloke for making sure that we haven’t put petrol tax all the way up to 52 cents a litre and I’m awesome because I’m going to save you 16 cents but only for a couple more weeks. Honestly, does this bloke have any idea how we see straight through him?
He’s a pane of glass now.
Daniel Wild:
Well, I think that’s right. I don’t think he does have any idea of this. He’s very aloof from what ordinary Australians think and their lived experience and there’s a couple of things about this. Firstly, I’ve got to tell you, I don’t think the government minds if the fuel price goes up because they’re all about electric vehicles, right? So if it costs more to run an internal combustion engine vehicle, then so much the better from their vantage point. So they’re probably wanting to get the fuel prices right up to where they were before the Iran war. The other point that I’ll make, and we’ve talked about this before, but this has really been yet another missed opportunity to deal with the seriousness of this issue. The reason why fuel prices skyrocket isn’t just because of excise. It’s not just because of the Iran war, it’s because we don’t have the ability to make and refine our own oil here in Australia.
We import 80% of our liquid fuels today. That’s the inverse of what it was two decades ago. Two decades ago, we had 80% here. Now we bring in 80% from overseas. The government has done nothing about that fundamental problem. So unfortunately, the next time there’s another shock overseas, prices will go up again.
Paul Murray:
Chrysten, I can’t help but think this is a government that carries on a lot about how evil the supermarkets are. This feels like one of those dodgy practises that happens where there’s a major reduction in order to get through this week’s sale and then when it slowly starts to come back up, apparently you won’t notice. That to me is the fundamental equation from this bloke. He thinks he can screw people over after an election, do something different when it comes to a budget, hope that nobody notices. And if you do notice, then you’re somehow some part of some sort of right-wing conspiracy. And if you are one of the supposed people who need most help from the government, well, sorry, you don’t really need it as much because we need that money now for ourselves.
Chrysten Abraham:
Have you not heard the new slogan of the Labour Party when it’s come to this, Paul? They’ve said down down prices are down. It’s 52 cents on the leader is going to the government and it is absolutely-
Paul Murray:
Hang on. Let me say, you know that big red hand that Kyle’s had, right? I’m thinking, can we get another big red hand, but I’m going to use a different finger. Sorry, Chrysten.
Chrysten Abraham:
Oh, my God. Great idea, Paul.
Paul Murray:
He can.
Chrysten Abraham:
You should put it on a merch store as well. I’ll probably buy it.
Paul Murray:
Done.
Chrysten Abraham:
But it is absolutely outrageous. It’s 52 cents per litre and they keep referring to it as a discount when in actual fact it’s a rort. The whole excise programme is a rort and our roads have never been worse and that’s why we’re meant to get taxed on fuel excise. If we should have a grading system on our roads and if they don’t pass a certain rating, then they should reduce excise the other way until it ends up at zero dollars because that’s the way our roads are going as well. Absolute rort, Paul.
Paul Murray:
No, 100%. 100%. I do like that idea. Can we get that? Anyone like, we’ll do that. We’ll put it on a T-shirt. It’ll take a few years, but eventually we’ll work it out. We’ll get it happen somewhere. All right, let’s talk about the prime minister when he’s confronted. Again, I cannot believe this, Daniel, right? All of the skin that has been lost by the prime minister, or dare I say, just the mask that all of us who’ve been paying attention saw never quite fit before the 22 election, let alone the 25 election and now he’s fallen off since about lies. Again, when he’s confronted about it today in the conversation with Kieran Gilbert, oh no, no, no, that’s just people deliberately trying to spin the ball. Here’s the deal. Now he’s got this, we’ve changed our position thing, but he doesn’t get to turn around and pretend that the people who call him out for doing something different than he promised, well, that’s a lie in political terms.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, that’s exactly it. And he does have form in this area. It actually goes back to the voice to parliament debate when you would bring things up about the Uluru Statement from the Heart and he would say, “Oh, no, it’s only one page, it’s not 24 pages, or it’s not going to do this, it’s not going to do that.” Even though he’d said the exact thing that it was going to do, he would always just try and weasel out of it. We saw it again, obviously with the budget. But also the other one that really I found interesting was with the Fire the Liar fundraising campaign where he said, “Oh, these people don’t exist.” When he was asked about the money, he goes, “Oh, no, have they really raised the money?” He’s sort of denying that it’s even happening even though there’s real money coming into the coffers of One Nation on the back of the campaign on that exact issue that he’s a liar and that when he gets presented with information he doesn’t like, he just tells you, “Oh, well, don’t look here.”
Just like the electricity bills, $275 cheaper. Oh, well, that was the modelling and things have changed, don’t worry about it. So yeah, I think you’re right. And then they turn around and wonder why nobody trusts them. That’s why trust is at a low web in politics these days.
Paul Murray:
Well, and again, and particularly in the working class vote, right? Now again, this will go up and will go down, but right now tonight, 6 out of 10 people disapprove of the prime minister. The number is higher with working class people. Now again, Chrysten, we all get the politicians are slippery. We all understand that they are shapeshifters, but the idea that they are also gaslighters worthy of a seat at the maths dining table is what gets me.
Chrysten Abraham:
There’s a reason that Anthony Albanese has lasted on the back bench for so long before he got moved to the front bench. He is a sneaky snake, realistically. And I think him not being honest with the Australian people is the reason why there are Labour voters going to One Nation because don’t throw a drink on me and tell me that it’s raining. And it’s straight out of Daniel Andrew’s playbook. People are fed up and they will not tolerate someone that says, “My word is my bond,” and then lies to them and says it’s nonsense for them lying.
Paul Murray:
Yeah, but let alone thinks that anyone who plays that tape again and going, “Mate, you said it. You said it on TV. We didn’t put those words in your mouth. You decided to release before the 22 election. The cost of living will be lower under a Labour government.” These were all the series of own goals, which we still had the scoreboard for. Now, Daniel, I want to talk about something difficult here, which is I don’t know how many shows I’ve talked about homelessness, I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had about food bank, but the needle doesn’t move, right? Now that’s not because of my advocacy or lack of the ability to do so. There’s just a harsh reality here and we saw it that even when Pauline Hanson was delivering a national press club speech and she was reading from the findings of the Red Shield appeal and a concern that they had, which was that 91% of people who they deal with, they skip meals, 60% have even expired food. 19% said that even eaten for a bin, right?
All of that, whatever, look, look what Get Up’s doing, look what Get Up’s doing, not the point of what she was actually talking about. Now, I thought that we had turned a corner like a political generation ago, Daniel, about the awareness and the importance of a social safety net and the want to take care of the people that are left behind. Now again, if this was a liberal government with these numbers, I’d be saying the same thing, right? But why don’t people care? Why doesn’t this seem to matter? Because there isn’t a week where there isn’t a report and there isn’t a week where the government does sweet fatty atoms.
Daniel Wild:
Well, I think there’s a couple of things. I think one is I think people do care, but a part of it is out of sight, out of mind. These are statistics that would be considered by some to be abstract and removed from their day-to-day lived experience. So if you’re not feeling it yourself or you don’t know people or you’re not around people that are experiencing this, it’s hard to conceptualise. I think the other thing is I don’t know what people feel they can do about it. I mean, realistically you can donate to a charity, you can do a variety of things, but there’s not necessarily a lot of things you can do, again, if you don’t encounter this into your life.
And it’s also, I think, a bit bewildering. This is the thing that gets me. We’ve never had more money as a country. The government has never spent more money. We’ve never paid more taxes. We’ve never had more debt. Yet if you take these figures on face value, things are getting harder and harder for people at the bottom of our society. So something isn’t matching up here and I think it’s hard for people to understand, well, if we’re putting so much money out the door, then why is it actually getting to people on the ground who need it?
Paul Murray:
Well, also, Chrysten, I want in the same way that all of our major political leaders have to make sizable announcements when it comes to health, sizable amounts when it comes to defence, to start to make sizable amounts when it comes to charities. Because will there always be poor people? Yes. Is there a whole series of reasons why people end up in those scenarios? Yes. But I’ve got to say, government doesn’t respond, the Salvos respond, Vinnies respond, food banks responds. Yet all of these organisations have to go so cap in hand constantly to government to get fewer crumbs than the government puts into the budget to sell themselves via taxpayer funded advertising. That’s what I hope in all of this is not to change a vote, but to change the culture that part of the basic admission of wanting to be a politician in this country is an understanding that of the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that we have, slicing one of those billions off extra for charity would be a good idea.
Chrysten Abraham:
That’s as well why we pay our taxes, Paul. We pay our taxes to help our most vulnerable in our community. We want everyone in our community to have a roof over their head and to be able to get an education and feed themselves. We don’t want anyone in our community to go through that. And yes, I believe that we should be supporting the charities that do the good work like the Salvation Army and others, but the Salvation Army also did a survey and 59% of those people that they surveyed said that they hadn’t sent their kids to school in the last 12 months because of transport costs. So on one hand, we have this 52 cents per litre in a fuel excise, which is contributing to why people can’t take their children to school. And on the other hand, we then have a government like the Victorian government that’s spending $8 million on machete campaigns and machete bin campaigns.
Our homeless people in Frankston, it used to be two o’clock in the morning, you would go down the main street of Frankston and you would see a couple of homeless people outside 7-Eleven. A couple of weeks ago, I walked there at 2:00 PM and there was like four homeless people already lined up and that’s outrageous as a society. And then we have politicians that are virtue signalling, standing around in sleeping bags and saying, “Donate to these charities.” When in actual fact is there is money in the budget. Taxpayers have paid for this, but what are we doing about it? We’re not doing the right things and we’re not spending the money in the right way.
Paul Murray:
Yeah. So good about that machete bin thing. It’s a weird story. I’ll get to it tomorrow, which is literally there was nowhere to film it at an available police station in Victoria, so they went to Sydney. Crazy. We’ll get to that. All right, Daniel, before we’re done, quickly about the UK by-election that’s just gone. Andy Burnham, I’ll talk about this in a second with Mark Dolan in the UK, he’s the bloke who’s going to eventually challenge and probably become the next British prime minister. But Labour smashed it, Reform didn’t and even Reform and restored together, their number would not have been able to win the by-election. What, if anything, does that give you some hope or insight into?
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, fascinating. Couple of quick ones. Firstly, how things change, right? Keir Starmer absolutely romped in at the election a couple of years ago and how he’s out the door. There’s nothing that is secure in politics these days. And I think the other thing to think about here is this realignment of politics that’s taking place that you’ve been talking about for a long time. We can see parallels here. Really, Reform has put Labour under the pump. Now Kier Starmer is out at the door, but they’re going to get someone else into the hot seat and it changes the game. So you’re basically starting from the start all over again. So it’s a long march for that realignment to actually take place.
Paul Murray:
Well, we hopefully have Nigel again on the show as always on a Tuesday night. I will talk to him about such a challenge. Guys, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time to Chrysten and also to Daniel. Quick break back with more. Mark, the-
This transcript with Daniel Wild talking on Opinionated News Australia from 21 June 2026 has been edited for clarity.
