April 24, 2025
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ranscript – Sky News Credlin
24 April 2025
E&OE
PETA CREDLIN:
We have seen a record high level of early votes in pre-polls, which opened, of course, on Tuesday. Over one million Australians have cast their votes in the first 48 hours of the campaign. Now this comes as News Corp exit polls across 19 battleground seats show a 4.6% swing on primary vote to Labor compared with where they were in 2022. The Coalition is at 38.5%. And Labor, as I said, 37.2%. Joining me now is campaign spokesman, Senator James Paterson. Well, James, I don't take a hell of a lot of sway with the exit polls. I think they are a straw in the wind. But what I do and what I am interested in is this spike in early voting, because the conventional wisdom has been, when people vote early, it spells trouble for the incumbent government. Do you think that holds true now?
JAMES PATERSON:
Peta, I share your scepticism about exit polls. They're notoriously hard to do and historically unreliable in Australia, none more so than the one conducted before the Queensland state election last year that said there'd been a big surge to Labor and that Stephen Miles was potentially on track to become Premier. That tells you everything you need to know about exit polls. With early voting, it's a funny contradiction. We know from the research, and this is evident in the public polls, that there's a big undecided vote in this election. There's a soft vote of people waiting to make up their minds, who will probably decide quite late. Yet we've had very high rates of early voting. I would say that's probably committed supporters of both parties or all parties getting out of the way because they've made up their mind a long time ago about who they're going to support. But I've had really encouraging reports from Liberal candidates all around Australia about a much better reception on early voting compared to the last election and that's a good sign for us.
PETA CREDLIN:
Yeah, I'd echo that. I hit the phones, particularly in Victoria and in New South Wales. They're the two states that will decide this thing, and I would concur; a really positive mood. Some patchy areas, it's not uniform, but I think anyone who's counting out the Liberals is kidding themselves. Let's go to Clive Palmer because he profits off a lot of sorts of Coalition messages. Not all the same, but a vast majority of them have an appeal to people on the centre right. But when you get into his how-to-vote cards, he's basically preferencing Labor or the left in 20 or so marginal seats. Now, as I say, his ads chase the votes of people on the centre-right. But do you think they understand that he's actually funnelling, via preference flows, their vote to the left?
JAMES PATERSON:
I think it's a really good point that you make, Peta. I think some people who will vote for Clive Palmer and his Trumpets of Patriots party will be people who'll be frustrated with the government, who'll be frustrated with the direction of our country is going in, and they may not realise that in doing so, if they follow that how-to-vote card, they might actually be aiding the Albanese government and getting three more years of it. They might even be voting for an Albanese-Teal-Greens government, which I think is probably the last thing that voters attracted to a party like that would want. And we have already seen a couple of candidates, including their candidate in Flinders, resign in disgust over that how-to-vote card which favoured the Teals. It's hard to think of parties less aligned than the Trumpet of Patriots and Teals, and yet that's what they've done. The only other observations I'd make, though, Peta, is that in the national published opinion polling, the Trumpet of Patriot is not even registering as a rounding error, and from my canvassing of candidates and colleagues around the country, they don't even have pre-poll booths well-manned around the country. In some seats, they do, but in most, they don't. And if you can't cover pre-poll booths, you're going to sure as hell struggle to man booths on the day, which are many more numerous.
PETA CREDLIN:
He's spent four million on YouTube, right? He's leading everybody, more than Labor, more than the Coalition, getting out and targeting, obviously, younger voters. Like the teals and the amount of money that's being thrown around by Climate200, what concerns me, this is really American-style politics coming to Australia. This is big money. This is what I would regard as dark money. It's not well exposed where the money from Climate200 and those sort of players is coming from. Is this a concern to you?
JAMES PATERSON:
It is, and in that way, the Trumpet of Patriots and Climate200 are a perfect mirror image of each other. They are bringing a billionaire style, big money politics to Australia, funnelling, as a Super Pac does in the United States, money from extremely wealthy people into a handful of candidates around the country to support them. And frankly, it's the opposite of the image that they portray themselves to be. Clive Palmer portrays himself to be a battler for the Australian people, and Climate200 and their Teal proxies portray themselves to be independent and focused on transparency and integrity, but the reverse is true in both instances. And I think voters should beware. People who come and say they're changing politics that they're doing politics differently, in many ways, they're doing politics worse, and I think they should be judged by the standards they set for themselves.
PETA CREDLIN:
Have we lost the art of a civil democracy and a civil election campaign? We've seen a real rise in vandalism and defacing of corflutes, and signs being stolen. We've got some pretty shocking scenes out there today in Grayndler and in Bennelong, actually on the booths. Well, what's happening, James?
JAMES PATERSON:
Peta, one of the best things about Australian democracy is it has been so free of violence throughout our history. There are very few countries in the world that can say that. And I think it would be a great tragedy if we lost that. But like you, I'm very concerned about the trends we're seeing in this election. There's been some shocking videos already of volunteers being abused, of violent acts towards other voters and campaigners, as well as signs. That's the last thing we want to see in our country. And if, God forbid, it gets worse than that, if there's a serious act of violence and someone is seriously harmed, that will change our political system forever and for the worse. So I really appeal to people to keep their cool. Elections are important. This is a consequential election for Australia. We certainly hope to win this election. But elections are not so consequential in this country that you have to go to acts of violence at a polling booth and treat volunteers, who they all are, on booths, in the way that we've seen them being treated in the last couple of days.
PETA CREDLIN:
And just before you go, something portfolio related, I had to read this a couple of times because I thought it cannot possibly be true. The ABC's uncovered documents showing that new tugboats ordered by our Navy, the Australian Navy, were actually built in China.
JAMES PATERSON:
It is a shocker, Peta, and it's a cracking story by Andrew Greene for the ABC. In 2016, when dress uniforms for the ADF were found to be made in China, the Labor Party, and particularly Senator Kim Carr, went absolutely feral and said that somehow these radio frequencies could be embedded in the clothes which would allow our ADF members to be tracked around the world by the Chinese government. That was a concern for Labor then. How should we feel about an actual platform, an actual capability, in this case, a tugboat, being made in China? Now, this is a platform ordered on Labor's watch, delivered on Labor's watch, it is Richard Marles' responsibility, and he has been nowhere to be seen today to explain this bizarre and inexplicable decision.
PETA CREDLIN:
I think it's extraordinary and of course once you get an asset like that that has to talk, have interoperability with all our other assets, you've got to worry that the stuff that's being communicated is not being sucked and sent back to China, James.
JAMES PATERSON:
That's right, in the strategic environment that we're in it doesn't make any sense to order any military capability from an authoritarian foreign government which is seeking to dominate our region. Let's hope that the next decade is a peaceful one, but if it isn't, I think we'll live to regret decisions like this profoundly.
PETA CREDLIN:
James Paterson, thank you very much.
ENDS