Saturday special: A week that shook politics — and the fight over what comes next

If you’ve been forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up free.

And you can now listen to our podcast too.

HAPPY SATURDAY

When we launched Canberra Playbook two months ago, we had in our minds that we were creating more than a newsletter, and that took on a double meaning this week.

We’ve launched a podcast which, in the literal sense, is more than a newsletter. It’s bringing our signature “The Playbook Interview” to you in audio form three days a week, hosted by Amanda Copp. More on that below.

More importantly, we want also to be a community — and it’s our community that’s fragile this week after the senseless attack on one of us: Helen Haines who, along with her staff, is a member of the Playbook club.

So, here we are, checking in with you on the weekend for the first time, for a special Saturday edition.

A community also listens to each other. So if you find want more of this, or have a way to improve it, or find it annoying — let us know! We mean it when we say we’re available through canberraplaybook@politico.com and WhatsApp: 0494 380 487.

We promise this is shorter than the weekday newsletter!

Below you’ll find a new regular column from our Playbook editor Paul Karp.

And then a showcase of our first podcast episodes featuring:

Next up Monday is Andrew McKellar, the ACCI CEO who’s suddenly everywhere, all at once.

ESSENTIALS

SATURDAY COLUMN

AUSTRALIA’S WISH FOR A KINDER POLITICS SEEMS DOOMED TO DISAPPOINTMENT

Australia is not immune from the normalization of political violence seen around the world. The country is girt by sea but the crazy can be downloaded or streamed from offshore.

The attack on independent MP Helen Haines produced consensus on the need to turn the temperature down in politics. This resulted in two immediate apologies for earlier inflammatory rhetoric — from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and Liberal MP Angie Bell.

But there was no backdown this week from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about a dirt sheet distributed by his office about Haines, and no agreement from his political opponents about measures to reduce division in society, like the proposed digital duty of care.

Moving from the general call to “turn the temperature” down to the particular is not easy. Political combatants may cool it for a short time after a horrific incident, but the overall trend — the climate, to extend the metaphor — is still getting hotter.

The incentives for divisive rhetoric remain the same: to grab headlines; to stir emotions for engagement on social media; to combat the decline of the major parties by adopting some of the rhetoric of the disruptors.

While Australia was united this week in grief, on solutions it remains divided. As a society it feels Australia is circling the same drain as the rest of the world.

Read the full column: ‘Australia’s wish for a kinder, gentler politics seems doomed to disappointment’

WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO

CANBERRA PLAYBOOK PODCAST

In the first six episodes of POLITICO’s Canberra Playbook Podcast, we’ve had Australia’s three most prominent political economic voices as guests: Treasurer Jim Chalmers, and his opposite numbers Tim Wilson and Barnaby Joyce as guests.

They all agree the country is under pressure. They disagree sharply on who should absorb the risk, and who has the political plan to respond.

Chalmers says rising global bond yields will add billions to the budget deficit: But he’s not taking blame — that he sheets home to wars, oil prices and competition for capital push borrowing costs higher. He argues the government must respond to cost-of-living pressures, but he doesn’t have much budget runway to do it, and needs to preserve Australia’s advantages as a reliable investment destination.

Wilson is telling us Australia doesn’t have a growth agenda. Most of his recipe is familiar — back small businesses, restrain government spending — but his more interesting (and riskier) terrain building up appetite for risk among you and me, and also regulators.

Alert to the dangers of insurgency (he lost his seat to Teal Zoe Daniel in 2022 and barely won it back in 2025), his pitch is nakedly political: the Liberals must make a bolder case to urban voters, including in teal-held seats and ones where One Nation leads polls.

Joyce sees the electoral map differently. He says the Coalition cannot win back government without One Nation’s support, pointing to its appeal among blue-collar and regional voters. One Nation, he says, would offer confidence and supply to help remove Labor from government, while staying out of a formal coalition.

The interviews also reveal how the parties are responding to the threat of political violence after the attack on Haines.

Chalmers says threats have become more frequent and violent, especially against women, and warns that greater accessibility can leave MPs more vulnerable. Wilson says aggression has increased, linking it to deteriorating economic conditions and the social effects of the pandemic. He also says heated debate cannot excuse language that crosses into violence, after being asked about comments by Liberal MP Angie Bell that Small Business Minister Anne Aly “should be stoned in the square” for her handling of credit card surcharge policy.

The conversations show Chalmers is desperate for voters — and the Canberra bubble — to see the complexity of his inbox before condemning him.

Wilson sees the wagons circling for Chalmers: he wants not merely to best him in Question Time, he wants Chalmers gone as Treasurer.

Joyce is the most confident of all: certain he’s running rings around Chalmers and has leverage over Wilson.

Listen to all three conversations on the Canberra Playbook Podcast.

What keeps Jim Chalmers Up at Night? Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Tim Wilson wants to take big swings Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Barnaby Joyce: The Liberals Can’t Win Without One Nation Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Five Things We're Watching

New U.S. Tech Sabotage Office: The Pentagon has spent months quietly building an elite new tech agency to help covertly disrupt and sabotage foreign technology programs considered threats to American military superiority. POLITICO’s John Sakellariadis, Jack Detsch and Paul McLeary report.

‘Adfection’ attack: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has wiped staff devices that were exposed to a new, sophisticated cyberattack, Cam Wilson reports. The public broadcaster is among more than two dozen Australian government, critical infrastructure, universities and media organizations that researchers at The Citizen Lab claim were targeted by an Israel-based company abusing the online advertising system to hack and track devices.

Multiple incidents at female MPs’ offices: Communications Minister Anika Wells revealed her Brisbane office was shut on Wednesday, two days after the attack on Haines, when a woman began behaving in a threatening manner toward her staff. The 47-year-old woman has since been charged with committing a public nuisance. “Our staff deserve to feel safe at work and this kind of behavior is always unacceptable,” Wells said in a statement. On the same day, WA Labor MP Hannah Beazley’s office was allegedly targeted by a man wielding nunchucks. The 56-year-old man was refused bail Thursday, after being charged with multiple offenses.

Cancer vaccine breakthrough: The world’s first therapeutic cancer vaccine has slashed the risk of tumor recurrence by 42%. Those are the clinical trial results for Moderna’s phase 3 personalized mRNA vaccine released in Madrid, according to The Australian. Chief investigator Georgina Long described vaccines as a new frontier in immunotherapy that would lift survival rates for several types of cancers. Nevertheless, the Australian Financial Review reported that shares in Moderna and Merck fell after release of the data, as disappointed investors had hopes of even better results.

Canavan to the lower house? Nationals Leader Matt Canavan’s road to a House of Representatives seat has opened up after colleague Michelle Landry announced she won’t contest her central Queensland seat of Capricornia at the next election. Canavan is second on the Liberal National Party Senate ticket, traditionally a safe spot but under threat from One Nation. The Sydney Morning Herald has reported One Nation’s federal director James Ashby may contest the seat.

WORLDVIEW

BRAZIL VOTES — IS IT TRUMP OF THE TROPICS, 2.0? The world’s 10th-largest country by economy, and seventh-largest by population — holds its presidential runoff on Sunday, with polls suggesting Trump-aligned Flávio Bolsonaro is on course to win.

Bolsonaro, the 45-year-old son of jailed former leader Jair Bolsonaro, leads narrowly over veteran socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. No candidate in Brazilian electoral history has ever come back from first-round defeat, and the past seven presidential elections in the region have all seen right-wing Trump allies come to power,” per POLITICO Latin America correspondent Eva Hartog.

“And there’s another important aspect,” Eva adds. “Lula’s Workers’ Party was founded in the dying days of the U.S.-backed military dictatorship, and it was a powerful symbol of political emancipation and democracy. To many Brazilians, Bolsonaro embodies the exact opposite. Remember, his father planned a coup, and speaks with nostalgia about the days of the military dictatorship.”

But a survey came out recently that shows for the first time, Latin Americans actually prefer China over the United States.

SERBIA VOTES — STUDENTS VS. THE STRONGMAN: Serbians will vote for a new parliament this Sunday, determining whether former President Aleksandar Vučić can retain his 12-year grip on power. Last month, the authoritarian leader (and close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin) dissolved parliament, called snap elections and resigned from the presidency — a strategic plan that, if successful, would allow him to return as prime minister, thus extending his rule in Belgrade.

Standing in his way is a Gen Z-led movement: Critics from the youth movement accuse Vučić and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party of corruption, negligence and democratic backsliding. And now, they’ve harnessed that discontent into their own political party, setting up something of a David-and-Goliath battle at the polls this Sunday, with a list of 250 candidates running.

Extraordinarily, most opposition parties have stepped back to support the students — a Serbian poll actually shows them with a slight lead over Vučić’s party.

BIRTHDAYS

SATURDAY:

Ex-Files: Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Hawke and Keating era minister Neal Blewett

Music-lovers: Channel Ten political reporter Chloe Bouras is off to see Hilary Duff to celebrate, and Drake turns 40.

SUNDAY: WA Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, Mauritius President Dharam Gokhool, superstar (and the only good thing about the 2024 AFL grand final, according to Paul Karp) Katy Perry.

Home