The election campaign has all but begun for Anthony Albanese, who has now used a sports podcast to riff on Donald Trump, clicks and conflict in media, Aukus – and his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs.
In the inaugural episode of The Circus, a spin-off from the popular The Grade Cricketer podcast, the prime minister said the National Rugby League’s expansion into Papua New Guinea was “the best example of soft diplomacy that Australia has ever engaged in” and that he’d had a wide-ranging discussion with the US president about “Aukus, the future of the world – and Greg Norman and Souths juniors”.
Speaking with hosts Sam Perry and Ian Higgins, the PM recalled his February phone call with Trump shortly after the Australian footballer Jordan Mailata had won the Super Bowl playing for the Philadelphia Eagles.
“I raised this with the president, pointed out that he was a Souths junior, that I had been on the board of Souths in the 90s and the noughties, and that some of the owners of Souths were people that he would know, James Packer and Russell Crowe.”
Albanese said he’d used sport as an avenue for building a relationship with Trump, also raising the name of Greg Norman, “who he does know – and [who] we’ve appointed to the Brisbane Olympics board recently”.
Sport may also be an avenue for reaching voters. The Grade Cricketer podcast has more than 100,000 listeners, while its spin-off’s audience is skewed towards sports fans more generally.
Its format, billed as sports comedy, appeared to suit Albanese, who was on safe territory for much of the hour-long interview recorded on Sunday and airing on Wednesday.
He spoke about gambling advertising, Medicare bulk billing, solar versus nuclear energy and how the anonymity of social media and the push for online news stories to “get clicks” were adding to what he called a decline in civility – and a rise in “conflict fatigue”.
“American politics at the moment is, I think, an example of that, and you should be able to have civil discourse, have differences, but still maintain respect,” he said.
Praising the rising popularity of the medium of conversational podcasts – “it’s not cantankerous. It’s not aimed at scoring a hit, or having a crack, or doing a gotcha” – he said it was “unfortunate” that “a whole lot of newspapers … are mainly opinion rather than fact”.
“And, there’s a reason why [podcasts are] becoming more and more popular, I think, is because people are sick and tired of discourse being people yelling at each other and trying to score a point.”
The medium appears to be part of his own strategy in the lead-up to the federal election, having appeared last week on Abbie Chatfield’s podcast, (who describes her audience “predominantly Green voters, or a bit further left than Labor”), as well as daily news podcast The Squiz and social media-based news outlet, The Daily Aus.
Both Albanese and Peter Dutton appeared on businessman Mark Bouris’ podcast, while Dutton sat for a long-form chat with Sky News.
When asked by Higgins and Perry who he would choose to field a parliamentary team of a wicket keeper and four slip fielders, Albanese’s retort was quick: “My predecessor, Scott Morrison, would probably appoint himself as wicket keeper, first slip, second slip, third slip and fourth slip.”
His pick for best sledger was Paul Keating, who would be joined by Tony Burke, Penny Wong – “her stare, when she’s unhappy, that would just freak any batter out completely” – and Christopher Pyne.
But would his arch opponent make the team?
“Dutton’d be good at sledging, but he’d drop everything.”
