Sizzle or fizzle? The verdict on the Roundtable

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Hey, folks, PK will be along in just a moment, but I'm Erin Park, host of the brand new podcast series Expanse, Nowhere Man.

You can binge all episodes now, and we've also just released a special bonus app.

The heroic side of his story just didn't stand up.

With evidence of fraud, allegations of international espionage, and a mysterious death in Mexico, who exactly was garrison gunslinger St.

Clair?

Listen to Expance now on the ABC Listen app.

Today the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

Government is always formed in a sensible centre, but our Liberal Party reflects a range of views.

Politics is the brutal game of arithmetic, but no one's going to vote for you who don't stand for something.

We've always been about the planet, but we've got to make sure that people have their daily needs met.

People are starting to see that there is actually a different way of doing politics.

Hello and welcome to the party room.

I'm Patricia Carvellis and I'm joining you today from Rundery Country in Melbourne.

And I'm Melissa Clark in Ngunnawal Country which happens to be the centre of economic reform talk at the moment in Canberra in case you missed it.

I'll be taking over from Fran Kelly for the next little while while she has a break.

I'll do my best to fill in for her shoes.

Look PK I do feel like Canberra's been a pretty busy place this week with the parade of people coming for this three-day economic reform summit that has had a bigger build-up than Ben-Hur, I think.

It's been hard to avoid noting just how much everyone is coming with a display of good intentions.

You know, everyone who's arriving to take part in this is talking about how they're optimistic and they're open to ideas.

No one wants to be a spoiler in this.

They're all, you know, ready to push their sleeves up to get rid of Danny Ellwood's regulatory hairballs that she was talking about.

It's not time laying bricks that's blown out, it's the approvals processes.

From planning to heritage to building approvals to environmental and traffic impact statements.

And these regulatory hairballs have found our way into almost every corner.

We're sort of getting to the end of the period now.

The three days of the Talk Fest is nearly coming to a wrap.

And it's going to be interesting to see how much of it actually translates into tangible changes that are going to affect you and me and everyone.

So we'll talk about that with Chief Political Correspondent for The Guardian Australia, Tom McElroy, who'll be joining us to give us his verdict on this soon.

But PK, I know you've been watching this really closely and you've been waiting to deliver a verdict.

So are you ready to say, is it a fizzer or has it been a Sizzler?

Like Sizzler, the restaurants where you can eat everything, all you can eat.

Remember those?

I do, sadly.

Yeah, same here.

And I'd be like, oh, but I feel full, but it's all you can eat.

It's like you're obliged to.

You're obliged to gorge.

Well, that's it.

So if you go with this analogy of gorging, gorging on economic policy, I think we are beginning, we record on the Thursday morning-ish.

We are beginning the third day.

We won't know really till the end of today.

So am I ready?

Not entirely, but I like to stab in the dark a little.

So I'll give you some thoughts.

Today is really the most important of the days.

It's tax and also spending, so budget sustainability is part of the conversation.

We already have a bit of an idea because of a very significant speech given by the Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler yesterday.

Today, missing some milestones are not best helped by receiving a budget of 10, 20, or $30,000 and then being expected to work out themselves how to spend it.

And frankly, many of those children are being overserviced.

The extent of therapy provided to those children now in the NDIS Which is about changing the NDIS.

Only I think Labor could take this on.

You'll never, you know, it's very important to put the context here.

It was Labor that set up this important scheme that is fundamental to so many people living with a disability.

It is out of control.

I say that, I don't want to say that, but it's the truth.

It's so much the truth that the sector agrees, people with disabilities agree because they know that without sustainability, without our ability to afford it in the long term, and without the public supporting it without thinking it's a drain and a waste and also a rort,

that they will lose the public license to keep it.

There has been a view that you need to do something on it.

And so we've got a big announcement from the minister about that.

A lot of it is lost, though, because we don't have a lot of detail on it yet.

So, and I reckon that's a bit of a problem.

It's a great idea, the idea that you have a thriving kids fund, which is a national kind of help for kids that are developmentally delayed, perhaps, you know, mild autism and they shouldn't be going on the NDIS scheme.

It's a good idea, but some states are surprised.

They were surprised about the announcement.

The minister wants it to grow the NDIS between 5% and 6%.

They'd already said that they want to get it to 8%.

So

why is this relevant to this question you asked me about this economic forum?

Well, if you don't get things under control like the NDIS, then you're having conversations that are meaningless because spending matters just like taxation.

Back to the fundamentals, though.

Is this going to be, you know, the sizzler or the fizzer?

I think it might be a hybrid of the two, which is, you know, I know I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too.

If you can come up for a portmanteau of those two words,

I want to hear it.

I'm trying, but

I'm trying.

I'm trying, but I'm also like, also going to concede defeat that I'm just going to stop this now.

Wise.

Yeah, very wise.

I'll let it go.

Look, I've spoken to people in that room.

There's been, I'll just tell you a couple of things.

There's going to be surprising breakthrough on copyright for creatives this coming, that you should pay them, right?

That's quite obvious to me.

Much more agreement on protecting from AI harm than expected.

So they've actually been successful in reaching some consensus about our nation and finding that middle path on AI.

So that's great.

Construction code and pausing and getting more housing built.

They've got a bit of consensus on that too, I've been told.

But on the big questions of tax reform, that's the big one.

And Mel, I'm not sure they've got that.

I think we're still waiting in suspense for that because a lot of this is about trying to build goodwill for changes that need to be developed further that won't necessarily be something that can be all packaged up together neatly with a bow on it ready to present at the end of the day.

So look, there's a lot of detail to get into on all of those things.

And I think we want to be able to go through a lot of that with our guest Tom McIlroy.

But before we get to that, I think we should probably just have a quick focus on some of the big international issues because they've really dominated the news headlines this week.

We've seen a pretty very undiplomatic relations going on between Israel and Australia.

So whilst we have both international issues there to deal with around the Middle East, we've also got big international movements on Ukraine with the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky heading over to the White House flanked by European leaders.

Australia is involved in a small way with Australia being part of a series of calls of the Coalition of the Willing about this.

We've had a bit of a finessing of the Coalition's position on contributing to anything there.

So, PK, what do you make of Australia's role in these two big conflicts?

Let's start with Ukraine, because I think that's been one where there's been some pretty extraordinary headlines and photographs.

Is Australia just a small cog in the architecture here?

Do we just sort of have to sit back and wait and see what these global leaders come up with in an effort to try and get a peace deal?

Yeah, I don't think we're a huge player, but we are a player.

And the Prime Minister wants you to know that we're a player.

They are putting out, you know, straightaway comms saying we have been

on the phone call of the Coalition of the Willing.

Now, why is that significant?

Well, I'll give you the contrast.

Prime Minister spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu.

He didn't put out anything telling you he'd just spoken to Benjamin Netanyahu, did he?

Mel, did you get that?

Did you get that message?

No, we didn't find that out for at least a while.

And I'm going to tell you more on that.

The Prime Minister did front the media a couple of times.

And the government's view, I've spoken to people who are senior who say to me, not once was he asked, have you finally spoken to Netanyahu?

But people were very, very interested in asking him about, have you spoken to, or, you know, what's going on with the U.S.

president?

I don't know how they frame the question, right?

So, you know, sorry, I love my media friends, but sometimes I think we get a little obsessed with one thing.

Probably we should have asked.

Secondly, but they didn't put out a message, so they didn't make it easy for us.

Not that everyone has to make it easy for us, but it is nice transparency.

The contrast I'm drawing is important for this reason.

It's not that he didn't want us to know.

When we finally asked, he did tell us, right?

But...

on the coalition of the willing on potential involvement on how to resolve the ukraine war we want to be really involved We're sending a message, and it's all about the rules-based order.

Like, we want to be there front and center on Ukraine because

we have championed this.

This is something we believe in, the rules.

Ukraine shouldn't capitulate to bullies like Russia.

And so we've been very, very active about that.

Yes, we're small, but we've kind of tried to loom large.

When it comes to the Middle East, we were trying to minimize ourselves, weren't we?

Now, it's been blown up because the public has a huge interest in broadly in the Gaza conflict.

Probably, if we're to be honest, there's much more activity, activism and concern, probably because of diaspora communities and numbers in relation to Gaza and the Middle East.

So there we've been trying to minimise,

you know, in our rhetoric, the role we can play.

We've heard plenty of times from the Prime Minister, Australia's not a big player in the Middle East.

This is not our part of the world.

We don't, we didn't hear that language about Europe.

Never, right?

So, well, I shouldn't say never because it probably was once, maybe.

So I'm not saying never, because I haven't checked every single transcript, but it's certainly not as often said.

I can say that with absolute certainty.

The point I'm trying to make is there is actually a logic to all of this, and it goes to values.

independence in foreign policy and

the rules-based order that we do believe that now Israel has gone so far that the government will be more critical and tell you about that and we'll get into the spat with Netanyahu in a moment but at the same time play a very active role when it comes to Europe which is also very far away quite frankly like you know anyone who comes from that part of the region like I do as in family ties knows how long it takes to get there absolutely look there's heaps to drill into here so let's get our guest in so we can get into the details let's do it

Tom McIlroy is the chief political correspondent for Guardian Australia.

Welcome to the party room.

Thanks PK, thanks Mel, great to be with you.

So let's kick things off with the economic reform roundtable.

It really does feel like it's garnered the focus of Canberra or at least the little part of Canberra around Parliament House this week.

You know we started with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer sitting in the cabinet room around that big oval table with everyone saying that this is the time to throw around ideas to inform government for the next three years.

Noting that we haven't got to the end yet, but we're getting close to the end yet, do you think it's been a good move by the government to throw open the cabinet room and throw open the doors to discussion in this way?

Has it been helpful for the government?

Yeah, I think the early signs are that it has been helpful.

It's definitely a high-powered list of individuals.

There's a core group of attendees and other people coming in and out for the various sessions.

And I must say,

they seem to be coalescing around some big ideas.

There seems to be consensus in the room.

And I think each of the representatives is doing a good job of arguing their case on the particular reform opportunities.

If Labor's serious about getting good ideas out of this, I think it'll be a really valuable exercise.

We've seen, I think, some of the firmest commitment or what looks like it might shape up as one of the more immediate outcomes around housing.

There's talk about approvals, though I think that's got a bit of a way to go yet.

The National Construction Code and putting a pause on that, that seems to be something that's definitely gathering pace and could materialise something in the next couple of weeks.

How does that play politically, given that was something that the coalition had been talking about during the election campaign and Labor opposed, but now it seems everyone's on board.

board.

What do you make of it?

Yeah, I think they're probably relying on the fact that the average swing voter doesn't know what the construction code is or how those rules work.

Unless you've done a renovation, in which case you know it and passionately hate it.

But yes, there's probably not the majority.

I think anything that can dramatically increase the speed at which people can get approvals for construction of houses, for other kinds of commercial properties, all that kind of stuff, even big renewable energy projects, will be a good thing.

And I think it'll be felt if they can achieve that.

We know that their 1.2 million homes target is a difficult reach for the government.

I think this could potentially help them there.

And that has to be a good thing if we can speed up housing construction.

Yeah, I mean not everyone agrees though.

I spoke to Ed Husick, who is the previous industry minister on afternoon briefing and he raised concerns about pausing it.

He explained the importance of it.

The International Construction Code because we would be successfully repeating the bad mistakes of the Coalition.

Right.

I think

he said he would support a review or something and, you know, you need to look at its settings, but the idea of pausing it, he did raise questions around.

So

it's not uniform, is it?

No, that's right.

And I think some of the trade unions who are at the table have concerns as well.

And the Council of Social Service have talked about the end product of quality of housing for vulnerable people being part of the equation as well.

I think this is a sign that the process is working.

The consensus is the goal, but it's important that different views are put and are heard by government.

Hopefully, that's one of the takeaways from this week.

Now, the big announcement this week from the Disability Minister and the Health Minister Mark Butler, that all feeds into it, doesn't it?

Just give me a sense of how important that is for, I don't think it's a mistake that they wanted that out while they were having this discussion, because sort of thematically, intellectually, when you're talking about tax and spending, well, one of the big items, of course, and the growth of the NDIS is part of it, right, Tom?

So it's all sort of thematically, very, very linked.

Absolutely.

No mistake that they're talking about the growth rate in the NDIS, this quite exponential growth that's been happening.

Currently, we're at about 11% per year growth in the NDIS.

It's already a $50 billion scheme and on track to doubling cost by the middle of the next decade.

That is huge, huge growth.

Everybody agrees we need to bring it back.

I think it feeds into the budget sustainability question that the roundtable is discussing.

We saw a couple of other smaller things like pension pension deeming rates also announced this week from the government.

If they can make a serious effort at curbing some of these big spending things, reducing waste obviously keeping the quality of the NDIS in place, keeping the spirit of the program that everyone agrees is so important, but save some of the money and redirect other parts of it like foundational supports, I think that's very valuable.

I think we are seeing the kind of messaging being bundled up by the government.

They'd like us to be talking about both things this week.

I think you're absolutely right and i think in some ways uh there's a lot more to mark butler's announcement this week than is perhaps clear up front there's a lot of focus on what he announced in terms of this two billion dollar thriving kids part of foundational supports that sort of new phrasing and new funding but ultimately what he's really doing is trying to push negotiations that have been underway for quite some time with the states to try and get a funding agreement to make sure that these foundational supports, these other supports for people with more mild or moderate or disabilities that can be ameliorated through developmental support, to try and make sure those aspects are in place so that fewer people need to go on to the NDIS, so that there are other options.

Now, that has been agreed for some time.

The states and territory governments agreed with the Commonwealth to this 8% funding target.

They agreed to foundational, to stump up for foundational supports to get there.

But when they've then gone to the detail to try and nut out who pays what, discussions about the funding split on health and public hospitals has been drawn into it.

Those negotiations weren't going very well.

The government had to put in a one-year extension on the existing arrangements to give them more time.

It's still not getting anywhere.

And I think we can read the announcement from Mark Butler this week about this thriving kids announcement, not so much as a new direction, because honestly, it's saying the same thing that has already been agreed, which is we need foundational supports to take pressure off the NDIS.

What it really is is a great big nudge to the states and territories saying, come on, the reasons you've given for not being able to progress, that you don't think we're committed enough or you don't want it to be a fractured system across different states and territories.

See all those reasons?

Here's some answers.

Your turn now.

You come to the table.

So this is Mark Butler trying not just to feed into the debate at the economic roundtable about future improvements to budget sustainability.

They're still trying to get the efforts of budget sustainability that had already been agreed to actually in place.

So, PK, there's a bit of wrangling to try and even get past agreements to deliver for the budget bottom line as well as future ones.

Yeah, I think the wrangling isn't like, and look at the way the states are responding, Queensland saying, well, we weren't told.

I mean, Tom, like, this is a vibe, isn't it?

Yeah.

You know, well, we weren't.

Well, okay, you weren't.

But, you know, it seems to me that the states have enjoyed the handballing, all of the responsibilities of, and anyone, you know, and I'm like, I've got kids, I've, I've gone through the system, the way that you, the, I've watched the school system just complete, and that's state government abandon often its responsibility to kids with the, you know, the mildest of needs.

Don't you think there's a like a really deep issue here with our federation and stepping up here?

Oh, absolutely.

I think wrangling the states on any major policy challenge, especially with such big dollars, is always challenging.

This one is particularly challenging because participant families feel they've got real buy-in to the NDIS.

They feel like they're at the table and that government shouldn't be seen to be taking away services that are already promised.

But as Mel said, we're already a year late on this agreement.

The states have agreed to extra health and hospitals funding to get this over the line and so far there hasn't been progress.

And of course there's an even bigger challenge coming down the pike.

Mark Butler said yesterday that the 8% growth target actually needs to come down to something in the range of 5 or 6% over the forward estimates.

So they really have their work cut out for them.

What do you think the community, the disability community will make of this announcement?

We've heard from Anne Ruston, the shadow minister here.

There are many parents who will be distressed about the uncertainty that yesterday has created for for them because there was, whilst there was a lot of headlining yesterday, there wasn't a lot of detail about how this will impact parents going forward, parents with children with moments of the moment.

I think he's being as cooperative as perhaps an opposition party can be, but she has raised the fact that there's a high degree of uncertainty here.

And just as there was uncertainty while these negotiations are going on place, suddenly announcing a new program with a new name but without a great deal of detail attached to it,

you know, she thinks it's going to cause a great deal of distress amongst many in the disability community.

How does the government manage that communication task?

I think they need to not make the mistake that they made in the past two years.

They need to give people information quickly, build consensus around how this new program is going to work so families can see what the change will be.

The states and territories understand their role, including the funding they're going to have to put in.

If that isn't a quick process, we run the risk of falling into the same trap two years down the line.

There's still no progress and families are left with this great uncertainty about vulnerable kids.

Well, certainly NDIS has been the dominant topic in the middle of the week, but we'll still have to see how this final day of chat about tax and reform, I'm sure

at the tail end of the week, we're going to be talking about income tax and company tax and all the other things that are going to come up in this final day of discussion.

Let's make tax sexy again.

guys.

Was it ever not?

Come on.

Look, I've always loved a bit of tax.

I think we're all nerds here.

We can embrace the taxes.

Look, I'm so old that I remember

back in the Howard government when a whole bunch of backbenchers, including

Malcolm Turnbull famously, when he was a backbencher, set up something called the Ginger Group, which is

going back away.

My favourite term.

Well, you know,

I'm leaning into this.

I remember it too.

We're all talking about how we're now all in our 40s.

We do remember it.

And a ginger group on tax was set up, like tax and changing the system to try and address the problems that mean that some groups are, you know, paying too much and it disincentivises work and then others not enough.

And then in terms of the demographic split, like...

It's big work, Tom, right?

But if they don't work it out, especially with such a thumping majority, well, what are they good for?

Yeah, I think all of these politicians are in this to be

people who reform the system, who make government work better, make the society work better.

If they can't do it on the current settings with such a dominance in the parliament and a couple of years of smoother political sailing ahead to the next election, I don't know when they can do it.

This is both the hardest matter that they will discuss in the roundtable and the important test of its effectiveness, I think.

I think that sums it up pretty well.

The same with the environment laws, too.

Look, Tom, we've got heaps to get through this week.

Let's move on to the world stage because that conflict that we prefaced earlier between Anthony Albanese and Benjamin Netanyahu, who really has been fairly extraordinary in diplomatic terms.

Take us through what we've seen unfold this week

that's followed from Australia's decision to recognise a Palestinian state and to deny some visas, including one in particular to an Israeli MP.

Run us through the diplomatic back and forth we've seen since then.

Yeah, the diplomatic communications have soured over this decision by the Home Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, not to grant a visa to the right-wing Israeli minister planning to visit on a solidarity tour.

That sparked these very strong comments from Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, saying that the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was a weak leader and was fueling the fires of anti-Semitism.

These are quite extraordinary comments and

were really felt here in the federal government.

government.

Anthony Albanese, I think, sought to kind of de-escalate the tensions a little bit yesterday and said that he wanted to work cooperatively and have civil discussions.

I believe the Israeli PM is doing another interview today.

I think there's going to be real challenges in the relationship going forward.

But of course, Labor's seeking to act in concert with international partners on recognition of statehood.

And I think Anthony Albanese believes he's in the right.

camp on that decision.

Yeah, look, I think we know a bit about what Benjamin Netanyahu has said to Sherry Markson at Sky News.

Sherry Markson has been campaigning around these issues and has been quite supportive of Benjamin Netanyahu and he's agreed to do this interview on Sky News.

I think that's notable.

You know, good honour for getting the interview.

No comment from me on getting an interview.

I'm almost always for that.

But I will say this, there are journalists in Israel who I follow closely who cannot get any access to Benjamin Netanyahu because they don't agree with him him or because they are going to challenge him immensely on his views.

Now, Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Anthony Albanese in this interview of showing weakness in the face of Hamas.

He's really doubled down on his criticism of Anthony Albanese over the government's decision to revoke that visa for the Israeli MP.

So really he's tried to ratchet it up.

You know, that's an active decision to go into our media with

what you would have to say is a friendly interview.

and he wants to keep this going.

Now,

I don't know how bad that is for Anthony Albanese actually on a political level, but he might want to decrease the talk on it, not because he's worried about whether he'll become unpopular, because I don't think it's going to make him unpopular, but just because I don't think, Tom, it's very helpful for the Jewish community here.

And you know that because they're actually split on this.

They're not really, some of them are no fans.

They're fans of Israel.

They're not fans of Netanyahu and the way he's acting.

Yeah, I think Anthony Albanese will be making a political calculation on that question.

I think Netanyahu is increasingly isolated on the world stage.

He's lashed out at other leaders who are recognising Palestinian statehood in this process.

The big question I think here is, and Susan Lee, the opposition leader, raised this yesterday as well, does the souring of relationships between the Netanyahu government and Anthony Albanese spread into the relationship with Donald Trump, which is obviously extremely sensitive.

If that is the case, if there's some retaliation from the White House for Australia recognising statehood and having a difficult diplomatic time with Netanyahu himself, this problem would be significantly escalated for the federal government.

I guess the question here is: when we look at souring of diplomatic relationships,

what do we want that diplomatic relationship for?

Like, we want to have good relationships with other countries, so So, intelligence sharing, like, there's some things we get out of it, right?

No, absolutely.

There are things that we want from a country.

We want to be able to do trade.

We might want intelligence sharing.

We want them to buy our things.

And we want to be able to persuade them about the way we see the world in a way that is helpful for us.

I think there's a question about if we describe the relationship as deteriorating, is, well, why did we have that relationship in the first place?

Because we want to be able to persuade Israel.

We want to be able to persuade Israel to act in a way that we think is beneficial for a rules-based world order

with free trade and all of these other aspects.

So if you have that relationship and that value is important,

don't you need to use that in the diplomatic relationship?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great, it's a great point.

And that's the point that Albanese has been making.

That's why he had that long conversation with Netanyahu, who raised the issues.

He clearly wants to continue to be able to do that.

But when you say persuade, it's a great point.

Tom, I've watched Netanyahu his whole political, no, you know, what my, he's older than me, like

my whole political life, like I'll use that.

This is not a persuadable dude.

This is a man who is fighting for his political survival and seems he just be clear, if he calls the Prime Minister's actions Hamas sympathisers, this man has accused his own population that has come out and protested of Hamas' help, of giving Hamas help, of being that these are these are families, right?

Some of them, not all,

of hostages.

Like,

that is unconscionable to say that.

Like, we are not talking about somebody who is deeply respectful of even his own citizens.

I'm just sorry, it astonishes me the way he talks about

his own people.

Just unbelievable.

Yeah, and I think the

the increasing ferocity of his attacks

suggests he's lashing out a bit.

I think it shows he's feeling the pressure.

But to the persuasion point, I mean, we should have these relationships to make the case.

If we can't persuade Benjamin Netanyahu to

end the war and not to proceed further with military operations in Gaza, then maybe we need to move the persuasion piece of the calculation to the international community to say that recognizing statehood is the right thing to do and that it will secure a return of hostages and end this conflict, which I think everybody wants.

Just before we wrap up on this topic, I think we should point out that while Anthony Albanese has certainly sought to downplay this as an escalating factor, as you mentioned, Tom, he talked about it, not taking it personally.

That wasn't the approach we saw from the Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in defending his decision and the government's decision to revoke or not issue the visas that had enraged Benjamin Netanyahu.

And he really took the fight up to Benjamin Netanyahu to respond to this idea that Anthony Albanese is a weak leader with his comments on Radio National Breakfast during the week that strength is much better measured by what Anthony Albanese has done.

You don't measure strength by how many people you blow up or how many children you have that are hungry.

They're really fighting words.

And that's quite a different approach from Anthony Albanese.

Do you think it was a deliberate strategy to have Tony Burke come out and say that and let the Prime Minister be a bit separate or are they instinctively different approaches from two senior people in the government?

I think Tony Burke can be measured when he needs to be.

Indeed he usually is.

I think it was probably a deliberate strategy to push back a little bit on the rhetoric coming from Benjamin Netanyahu to make Australia's case that the starvation that is happening in Gaza is unacceptable

and that the war should end.

Equally, Anthony Albanese seeks to rise above the fray a bit and

be ready to speak to the Israeli leader when those opportunities present in future.

I thought that was a good strategy.

I think the government was able to have its cake and eat it too a little bit there.

I was saying yesterday with David Spears on the Wednesday pod

that...

It's good cop, bad cop, and it's not, but it's not just

analysis from me.

They're being quite strategic about it, and rightly so.

I mean, they don't want members of the Jewish community here in Australia to feel that they are being attacked.

They certainly don't want to add to the problem of anti-Semitic behaviour, vandalism, violent attacks that we've seen over recent months.

But this kind of political rhetoric demands a response, and I think that's what we saw in two parts.

Tom, really appreciate having your expertise to help us through some really big issues from the details of the domestic tax code through to the international conflict.

flows of our time.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks, Tom.

Questions without notice?

Are there any questions?

Members on my route.

Prime Minister has the call.

Thanks very much, Mr.

Speaker.

Well, then I give the call to the Honourable, the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister.

The bells are ringing, and that means it's question time.

This week's question comes from Geoffrey in St Kilda in Melbourne.

Hey, PK and Mel, it's Geoffrey from St Kilda here with a completely stupid question.

So I hope you will indulge me, if that's okay.

On Sundays at nine o'clock you dial into or you appear on the couch for insiders but clearly everyone has had their hair done and their makeup done so I'm kind of curious about what time you actually have to turn up to get that kind of treatment and what time the makeup and hair people have to turn up.

I know this is a stupid question, but I'm just curious.

Thank you.

Jeffrey, I love how you've gone I know this is a stupid question but I'm really just curious you know what I

am a bit sort of like you know how good teachers say to you there isn't there are no stupid questions I agree with that and I think that I always think you know there are some things you do become very curious about and the biggest questions I get are not about

there are often things like that people are like about the problem I've literally been asked this question before so it's uh it's everyone's stupid question I think probably I think the thing is I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you something, Jeffrey, which will, I don't think you will be shocked, but if you are a woman, the expectations on you publicly are a lot higher than my male colleagues.

My male colleagues will agree with this.

So I don't know any of them that won't.

So they can come later.

I believe that because I am a woman on television, my hours are longer.

My hours are longer because it is longer in the chair, especially.

Mel's got long hair.

I've got long hair.

So what time do we get in?

I think often sometimes I even get booked in from 6.30 in the morning to be in hair and makeup because there's so much hair and you know we have to make me look like you know I'm sort of acceptable for the public sphere.

I enjoy it by the way.

I really like being in the makeup chair.

I love speaking to people and you know that we work with some wonderful people behind the scenes so whatever.

But the blokes turn up because of social expectations, not because they're bad people, and they just get a bit of powder and it's finished.

Am I right?

Oh, you are 100% right.

This is one of my absolute bugbears, possibly because unlike you, Peak, I don't really enjoy the time in the chair.

I mean,

I'm a bit uncomfortable about it because I don't really like makeup or in my personal normal life.

We have fortunately some wonderful makeup artists who are both lovely to talk to and are very considerate of my desire to have less is more.

But nonetheless, I mean, you're sort of spending more than an hour or so getting hair and makeup done first thing on a Sunday morning for insiders whilst the guys sort of roll in, have a bit of powder on the face so their skin doesn't shine too much, and 10 minutes later, they're on their way.

And I've had plenty of conversations with some of my fellow couch members on Sunday mornings saying, Do you really think you're 50 minutes better looking than me?

That this is somehow reflective of the standards?

No, there is a very, very different social expectation on men to women.

And whilst we've come a long way, I think that's one area where we've still got a very long way to go.

Yeah, and I know, can I say, some women, I'm not going to name them because they won't like it, but who,

not just journalists, by the way, who go in and say, I don't want much and I want it for 10 minutes.

And like they're really, and that's how they've addressed it.

And probably they get a lot of

mean comments because they don't have enough time, the makeup artists to do a, you know, the, and but that's a choice.

I feel like I get trolled enough for other reasons.

I don't need you also, you, not you, Jeffrey, but some people to tell me also I look ugly and old and too ethnic and my nose is too big and the very, I just don't.

So if particularly we have a lovely Mel in the makeup room, when she wants to make me look my best self.

Not me, Mel, a different Mel.

We have a makeup, a different makeup artist, Mel, who's one of our best.

And Mel just, she just tries to help me look my best self so that no one is nasty to me.

So that's, you know, my choice.

I don't want to get too philosophical here, but

I'm glad you raised the point of

efforts to sort of resist that level of makeup for people who don't want it.

But there's much bigger consequences here because

I know our makeup artists, they are excellent.

They are often asked to do a lot in a very limited amount of time.

But this is also their professional role and they are judged by how people appear on air.

And

for someone like me who doesn't like much makeup, I'm also considerate that these are professional artists at work doing their job and they need to meet a standard that their industry expects.

So you also don't want to impinge on their ability to do the best job that they they can according to the standards of the industry, which whilst I might personally find very frustrating are nonetheless the world we live in.

So I feel like we've gone down a real feminist rabbit hole here, PK, but

I'm happy to do that.

Thanks, Jeffrey, for asking.

And I feel like we've got some things off our chest there.

And also, Jeffrey, one more thing.

I'm a little, I've become, I've become total drag queen about it.

They say to me, do you want eyelashes today, Patricia?

And I'm like, yeah, I want them all.

So I, because my thing is, if I'm here anyway, I had to come in earlier than everyone else, which meant I had to study up earlier.

Just go crazy.

We really are opposites.

In many ways, we're similar, PK, but in this way, we really are at the opposite end.

I lean into it now.

It hasn't always been the way I am, but I don't know.

I'm aging.

All right.

Keep sending your questions in.

We actually really love getting them, especially offbeat ones like that.

That was great.

Send them to the party room at abc.net.au.

And remember to follow Politics Now on the ABC Listen app so you never miss an episode.

I know that I like to get a quick update in the afternoons after my early mornings.

It's a really good way to make sure you're across everything that happens each day.

It's true.

Shout out to one of my oldest and bestest friends, Alice, who the other day I said to her, Did you listen to today's episode, yesterday's episode?

And she said, Yes, in the afternoon, right after it published.

So you must be, and I was like, whoa, man, you're good.

So that is like an afternoon listening.

Gold medal for first listen.

First listen straight away, soon as it publishes, if you've got the time then.

We really love doing this podcast.

I'm so happy that I've got you as my co-host.

Love Fran, of course, but you are the perfect co-host, Mel.

And big reveal, you will also be hosting afternoon briefing for the month that I'm rediscovering my Greek heritage.

So that'll be exciting too.

Now, David Spears is in your ears with insiders on background with Aruna Suthanapali and Chris Richardson joining him this week.

So that's your Saturday pod.

See you, Mel.

See you, PK.