'Albo’s New Look' – PM unveils refreshed Cabinet with promotions for Tim Ayres and Michelle Rowland
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On Sydney Now. You can't handle the truth. The Straight Shooter. Our Monday Straight Shooter is former Liberal MP and now pubs king Craig Laudy. G'day Craig. Clinton, how are you mate? I'm good mate. More importantly, as a former Liberal MP but still very closely connected with the party, how are you doing? How are your colleagues doing at the moment? They're doing it tough. I, um...

There were a lot of results here that surprised me. I've spoken to a few of them. Guys that I went in with in 2013, I spoke to Michael Suka a couple of days ago, Luke Howarth. Guys historically that have done well when the tide has not necessarily been flowing our way, but in this occasion. And the surprising thing, Clinton, they didn't see it coming to this effect.

Look, a lot of people, this is just unfortunately modern life, they lose their jobs through redundancies and often they don't see it coming. Now, politicians aren't popular, we all know that. But from that personal aspect, particularly if an MP doesn't see what's about to happen, how do they actually deal with it? Do they have a backup plan? Because many of them come from other industries, some of them come from the political classes, mind you.

But do they suddenly think, okay, they're going to go and join that law firm again? Yeah, look, if you have a profession behind you, yes, that's something you can do. And I know Michael Suka, for example, has a professional career he can fall back on. But someone like Luke Howarth, Luke sold his family business, pest control he was in, to run for the 2013 election. He's been in parliament now for, what, 11 years now.

And he's now effectively made redundant. And when I spoke to him, he said, look, I'm going to have a bit of time with the wife and kids, and then I've got to work out what I do next. And I'm not saying we should be sympathetic towards them because they know that's a good deal. No, no, I'm just saying it's pragmatic. It's how it works. But it's a little different on our side. I mean, there's a lived example for Luke. But on the Labor side, they do, of course, have the union movement and other bits and pieces that they can –

Rewards service with roles Okay, home to the Liberal Party Tomorrow there'll be the party room meeting Smaller party room now To decide on who'll be the leader So we know that Angus Taylor, Susan Lee are running Suggested in the past 24 hours That Tim Wilson is sounding out colleagues So he's just returned to Parliament Goldstein He was the former member for that Melbourne seat previously But lost it at the last election He's back now

I don't see how that would be possible because I don't see how he'd be able to win support of MPs he hasn't actually been working with for the past three years. Look, I completely agree with that and congratulations to Tim on winning his seat back from the teal. And if I was the party, it's guys like Tim and guys like

Luke Howarth, like David Coleman, if they want to start looking at where we go from here, how we rebuild, instead of that previous generation of Brian Locknames, Tony Abbott, John Howards, find the people that have won marginal seats. Melissa McIntosh out there at Penrith, she withstood the flood.

and sit these people down and pick their brains about how we campaign against them and how we move forward. In terms of the leadership tomorrow, Angus and Susan, I think, will be the two candidates that put their hands up. Great people, great potential leaders, very different characters. And I think it will be very interesting, Clinton, and for your listeners out there, how much the loss is associated with each of those two, because they were both in the senior leadership team.

They were all there when they were deciding strategy, although Peter Dutton would have had the final say. So it's who can, I guess, paint the picture. And the X factor, of course, is Jacinda Price moving party rooms from the Nats to the Libs and potentially running in a ticket as deputy with Angus and what difference that would make. Has she, in your view, has she done the dirty on the Nats?

Look, she's ambitious. And as David Littleproud, I heard him say earlier this afternoon, her ambition lied beyond where she could get to in the National Party Room. And she can't be the deputy leader of the Liberal Party from the National Party Room. But the way that the

CLP works in Queensland, sorry, Northern Territory, is one where you can decide which party room you sit in. But if you're a Liberal backbencher, or you're one of the Liberal members of the party room, how could you vote? And I'm not saying Jacinda wouldn't be a bad deputy, because she has enormous popularity, and I think we've got to look outside the square at the moment. But...

If you're a Liberal Party MP, could you actually vote for somebody to be in a leadership position, so in a way be your boss, when they actually haven't been on your team until yesterday? Well, they're effectively in the coalition team. But your point, I think, is the point where she could garner strong support, is that she's out of the box. She comes from the real world. She cuts through. She's a very good communicator. And that may just be enough to get her over the line. Susan Lee or Angus Taylor, who should be opposition leader?

Look, at this point in time, with the disconnect between women and the younger generation, my gut feel would be that Susan would have the votes. However, they would both be great leaders. I know Angus extremely well. I went in with him in 2013. He's a good friend. But Susan's been there a long time from a rural seat. She's got a great background and would be a great conduit, I think, to the missing female vote, which went walkabouts at the last election.

The Prime Minister has announced his new ministry today. Yeah. And his new outer ministry. He seemed to name 40,000 different MPs in position. Now, probably the headline is that Tanya Plebiscite won't be the Environment Minister anymore. Murray Watt takes on that portfolio. She moves to Social Services. Is that a bit of a slap to Tanya Plebiscite? It's a demotion. It's definitely a demotion. And I think Murray Watt's been put there because he's done a good job, a competent job in the last...

And this portfolio has given them a lot of grief, particularly with how it interacts with the resource sector in this country and our continued reliance on that moving forward, potentially, particularly critical minerals and the role they will play in the decades to come.

Murray Watt actually had reasonable profile in the last term of Parliament and didn't seem to upset too many people. Safe pair of hands. You'd see. Somebody who did upset a lot of people, a lot of our listeners don't like him, is Chris Bowen. Hasn't moved at all. Yeah, I can't get a read on that one. I guess the New South Wales right had already lost Ed Husic and...

as probably a part of that deal they could name what they wanted to do and I see that Tony Burke's stayed in the same spot as well. Well I mean a lot of key ministers have stayed in the same spot. And he did make clear before the election that Treasury, Foreign Affairs, but even Mark Butler stays on as Health Minister. A lot of those key portfolios aren't changing at all. Yes, yeah. Which is continuity and that's not a bad thing because you do have to learn a new brief and get your head around how the department works. On Ed Husic but also Mark Dreyfuss being given the

punt. Is that just the way politics works behind the scenes and a similar thing would happen in the Liberal Party? Look, Mark, I feel sorry for both guys on two different fronts. Mark, I feel sorry for because I think if he'd known that he wouldn't have a ministerial spot after the election, he would have retired. Now he's got three years, he'll potentially cause a by-election. But Ed, I feel sorry for a different reason. He did the right thing

four or five years ago when he knew there was one more minister that had to go and he put his hand up and said, listen, I'll stand back and let you guys work it out. And that was to look after one of the Canberra MPs that was the Assistant Treasurer, effectively without a faction. So Ed's done the right thing by the party historically. The most interesting part of this is Richard Marles has obviously got his own ambition and

And I never realised it was this strident. But these sort of decisions that he's made can come back and hurt you in the long term. You know, his ambition now has probably pushed another nine to 12 years down the track. And who knows what the state of the right wing of the Labor Party in New South Wales and Victoria will be in those days. And

And all I know about the New South Wales right is they have a great ability to hold a grudge and excise... A long-term one. A long-term grudge and excise revenge when it's the most applicable time to do so. I think the fact that Ed Husic yesterday came out and called the Deputy Prime Minister a factional assassin was pretty random. Strong language. Hey, on a lighter note, Laundie Hotel's major sponsors are the Bulldogs...

I didn't watch the game, but I was following the scores in the match between the Dogs and the Canberra Raiders on the weekend. And I tipped Canberra. And I saw that the Raiders were up 20-0 at halftime. I thought, sweet, no dramas at all. There's a tip that I've won.

Your mob made a comeback in the second half, put on 32 points. I'd like to tell you that I'm going to out myself here. I'd like to tell you that I held out hope at halftime. We were in the States, so it was 11 o'clock at night over there. I had Dad with me, Susie with me. At halftime, I got up and said, listen, I can't watch this. I'm going to bed. And Sus came in and said, no, you can't do that.

Get back. She forced me to come back outside. And we saw one of the greatest second half comebacks in the history of the Bulldogs. They are just a team that obviously Cameron Serrato has instilled a great belief in. Stephen Crichton's performance, I mean, it was a come with me captain's knock. And he just grabbed them by the scruff of the neck. Your company has been with them since the really bad times. Dark days. You joined at the bottom. Yep.

When your father, Arthur, and yourself, you decided to become the major sponsor of the Dogs with Gus Gould, what did you see in the Bulldogs that gave you some confidence that they were going to be able to turn it around? Because no company wants to be associated with losers. You want to be a winner. Well, the original thought was they didn't have a jersey sponsor at all. They couldn't attract anyone that wanted to back them.

and it's an area of Sydney where my family comes from. It's where we started our business. And we felt we owed the community a debt and we wanted to be involved in a turnaround story. And, you know, with John Currie at the time and now Adam Druzy with bringing in Gus, bringing in Cam Seraldo, we just had belief if the right people came in that, you know, our financial support could achieve great things and, you know,

And to be honest, we're seeing it a lot quicker than we thought it would be. But we are seeing it. And we're immensely proud of what the team have done. Well, they're sitting on top of the competition ladder. Long way to go. Yeah. Long way to go, but they'll be looking pretty strong. I'd rather be where we are than when someone like Penrith is at the moment. Penrith's second last. Yeah, there you go. Good on you, Craig. We'll talk next week. Good on you, Clint. Our straight shooter for Monday afternoon, Craig Laundie.