Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Influencers, In-Fights & New Media" with Hannah Ferguson

Transcript

"Influencers, In-Fights & New Media" with Hannah Ferguson · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Get a Humans, welcome to the Safe Space for Dangerous Ideas.
• 0:06
  And it's a dangerous notion to those of us who grow up in a time before social media.
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  The notion that the conventional media, the big titans who control it like Rupert Murdoch,
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  is giving way to a new crazy landscape of podcasts like this and podcasts that are much
• 0:24
  worse and some, maybe one or two, that are a little bit better.
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  One of the faces of new media, especially new female media, is Hannah Ferguson.
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  She's 26 years old and dominates a young media empire in Australia.
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  She's one of the faces of the new progressive media landscape, has bazillions of followers
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  and is feelerscent unafraid about pursuing her progressive agenda in the Australian media
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  landscape.
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  A fierce critic of Rupert Murdoch and the legacy press, she co-hosts the podcast Big Small Talk,
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  which is a weekly news show that breaks down politics and also pop culture to her army
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  of young female audiences.
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  Before the last Australian election, the Prime Minister came and sat down with her, the
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  leader of the Greens Party came and sat down with her, she copped a lot of criticism for
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  doing softball interviews, but she says, gotcha questions are really not the point.
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  She recently gave her first post-election address with the enormous honour of being invited
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  to deliver the National Press Club address, which is an extremely fancy and hoity-toity
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  honour in Australian politics and journalism.
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  She was asked if she intends to run for politics, she's been unabashed about saying she wants
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  to be the Prime Minister of Australia some day, I wouldn't put it past her, and she confessed
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  that she wants to run as an independent senator in the 2028 election.
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  We talked about the changing media landscape, the power of the young female vote, and
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  the future of the media in Australia and beyond.
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  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, the one the only Hannah Ferguson.
• 1:57
  Where's your head at the moment?
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  I mean, I feel like you've, is there a before press club and after press club era in
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  your life?
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  Absolutely, and I think originally it was before election and after election, and then
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  the Thursday before the election, I got the call from press club saying, do you want
• 2:14
  the game?
• 2:15
  Oh, was that so?
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  I had ten days.
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  Wow.
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  And I knew you died.
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  That's exactly what, no, they had no line up, and they did have a line up, I think it's
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  for someone in August, and women and media get a couple of slots, I believe each year
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  to sort of help collaborate and pick some people out that maybe the press club wouldn't
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  be across.
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  So I think they pitched me, and the president of the press club was like, I don't know who
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  that is.
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  And I thought fantastic.
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  And so that was why I was able to get in.
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  I think because there wasn't that much knowledge, just fantastic for me.
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  And then basically, yeah, I got the gig and I thought, well, I have to really wait until
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  the election results is clear.
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  It was quite immediately.
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  But then even a little things about the independence and the Greens, I think I really wrote the
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  address in the 48 hours before I gave it, which was good for me because I'm the person
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  that needs that urgency and deadline to perform, otherwise I just leave it, leave it, leave
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  it to us minute anyway.
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  Yeah.
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  I've got a huge meeting coming up tomorrow morning, and I then, like, I've left tonight
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  to crack it up, basically, because otherwise I won't.
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  I don't have this sort of attention span I need to have that, like, it's an immediacy
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  bias, and I have to be saying something that's relevant today, which is what I do.
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  I find it hard to motivate myself unless I need to.
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  Completely.
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  I always think, well, maybe I'll die before then anyway, you know?
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  It's like, even if I waste time on paying my taxes now, I can do it the last possible
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  minute.
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  I love superannuation, but voluntary contributions.
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  I'm like, what if I die?
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  Yeah, that's exactly it.
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  Thank God for the compulsory.
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  Thank God the government forces me to do sensible things.
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  But I mean, it's so nice isn't it that you get picked and the person who is in charge
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  of the press club doesn't even know who you are because there's a reason advantage for
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  people on the outside that the lame establishment don't necessarily know who you are.
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  And then they're like, so they're going to take other people's word for it.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Oh, that she's successful.
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  The kids like her.
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  Okay, good.
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  I guess.
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  Well, I think also because of this whole influencer cloud that hung over a lot of the
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  election, I thought if they knew more about me, they may be more hesitant because I would
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  threaten maybe the reputation of the press club.
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  But again, they let people.
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  Why would that happen?
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  I think that it's not that I think that's legitimate, but that might be a perception.
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  Because you're left wing.
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  Yeah.
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  And because there's this, again, this influencer sort of fluff that's applied to that,
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  even if I believe that's untrue and unfair.
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  Maybe you're the most credible, you know, identity within that space.
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  Yes.
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  So it's a way for them to dip into that space without going full, Abbey Chatfield.
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  That's a nice compliment.
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  And again, I made it to Abbey, but I do see what we do is distinct in the ecosystem.
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  I think people are just doing different things.
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  And I actually, my biggest problem with the basket of influencer is people are operating
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  with different theories of change.
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  And some people are just dipping their toe in the water of political engagement, trying
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  to do the right thing for their audience, but they're not necessarily a commentator.
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  So to like put them in this basket of like political influencers is really unfair when
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  I've founded this with the purpose of solely, politically communicating.
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  Unfair to whom?
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  To you or to them?
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  To both, I think, actually, because if someone is an influencer genuinely in there, someone
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  who's a TV personality, to then cast the same sort of microscope over them for just saying,
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  like, this is how I'm voting.
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  They're not a commentator.
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  They're not pretending to be.
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  So it's not fair to them to lump them in the basket of, you are now a political body
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  or a voice.
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  Well, at what point do they annoy themselves that?
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  Because if they're just saying I'm voting this way, then it would be unfair to, you know,
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  to criticize them for that.
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  But if they, there comes a point at which they've done enough long in-depth Instagram
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  reels digging into something that they've read on Michael West Media, which may be, you
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  know, quite insightful or true in some ways, but they are lacking both the editorial skill
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  that comes from having a background in journalism and also probably the understanding of global
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  politics and economics and all kinds of other things that people bring to bear, which makes
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  me sound very snobbish and delicious and like, I think that the mainstream media is doing
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  a perfect job.
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  But at some point, you're going to get to a position at which you have to be able to
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  cop the pushback of being like, you actually don't, you actually talk about things you
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  don't fucking know about.
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  Completely.
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  And one of the biggest frustrations for me was seeing that there were influences being
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  paid by political parties organizations because, you know, organizations came to me and offered
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  me money to make real stuff.
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  And I said, no, I said, I'm not doing that because I know what that means for the way that
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  I am perceived in the trust that I have with my audience.
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  Like that is absolutely not on.
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  And then seeing authorizations and sort of like paid for steps on post, yes, it's good
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  that it's disclosed.
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  And yes, you know, I wish politicians had to disclose their donors for laying out policy.
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  You know, like I wish that sort of application on social media was the same for all.
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  But I think I was frustrated because I was like, in one breath, you're trying to educate
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  people politically about preferential voting.
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  But then in the next, you're actually endorsed and paid for by a politician to talk about
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  the independence.
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  And that was frustrating even though I'm a massive supporter of independent politics because
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  I'm like, that creates destabilization in this ecosystem that's already ever present.
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  I agree with regulation.
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  I agree with the AEC's probes around.
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  The election, that was very necessary.
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  But I think to me, again, I think you raise a good point of what point does someone's content
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  become enough to meet that threshold of requiring that kind of probe?
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  I think a lot of influencers did require more of a probe than they got.
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  And some people did spread misinformation.
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  Do you mean social paid?
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  I don't just mean if they are paid.
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  And there's both because I think there was a lot that did spread misinformation or like
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  didn't understand the ins and outs of preferential voting and then tried to advise on it and
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  it was slightly incorrect.
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  And that was tough because I was trying to message people with this kind of gentle like,
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  Hey, you've got it wrong.
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  I really support that you're trying, but like we've got to get this right because there
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  is going to come a lot of scrutiny that will be applied to me because of what you're
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  saying.
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  You know, so I was really, I didn't want to be a micro manager of the ecosystem, but I
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  was very much like, it's a lot of scrutiny that's going to come right now and we're going
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  to pave the way for the next election cycle and the one after that.
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  So we need to really understand and have a clear line of ethics now.
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  Just on the funding question and political parties paying you and good on you for not taking
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  money from them.
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  But the, I don't think there is the double standard that you're pointing out.
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  They're saying it would be good if politicians had to reveal where they're funding sources,
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  like who lobbies them and gives their campaign money.
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  Influences don't have to reveal the contra that they get or the deal that they have behind
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  the scenes that they're not putting on an ad.
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  Yeah, that's true.
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  Right.
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  They have to declare it in an ad just as a political party has to say spoken by someone's
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  always on so authorized.
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  Right.
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  Political advertising has to be labeled online and on, in legacy media and behind the scenes,
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  anything that's right.
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  Everyone is up for sale.
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  Like, you can have an experience, but you don't have to necessarily post about it if
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  those aren't the terms of your contract, right?
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  But like a lot of people wouldn't even, a lot of people would prefer as influencers to
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  take a holiday or something where they didn't have to post about it, but probably feel
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  compelled.
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  If they post anything about it, they have to say gifted, they have to say experience
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  paid for, they have to say I'm being paid to say right, but it can come up later in conversations
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  like this.
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  I mean, this is why the ABC has such strict and valid rules around presenters and journalists
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  not having any commercial engagements outside because if I was, when I had my ABC radio show,
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  if I'm going on some rant about how, you know, coals is fucked because they have gotten
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  rid of too many people and the self-check out kiosks don't work.
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  And then you find out that I have a commercial relationship with woollies, a competitor, even
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  if it wasn't in, even if I wasn't doing an ad for woollies, it obviously contaminated
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  my overall worldview and my bias if I had that relationship.
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  So.
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  But then I would say to that, like a politician announcing a policy or announcing an approval
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  of a gas expansion project, if they're being donated to buy woodside, they probably
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  should have to say that the time of announcing the approval.
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  But later speaking about an approval, I can understand that they might not, but we have
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  to make like what would be the direct comparative then something like that, probably.
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  Yes, yes.
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  So is there actually a perception, a possible perception of a conflict of interest?
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  I mean, in which case they would just always be saying that there's a conflict of interest
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  because almost every big company donates to political campaign.
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  True, but true they then, you know, like I know it would be sort of overwhelming the
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  amount of labels and disclosures we get, but it would be more transparent.
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  Yeah.
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  Or you just like reform the way that companies run out to donate to politics, that's a
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  great fact.
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  Yeah, just probably a simpler and more parsimonious way to do it because what you would end
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  up with, I'm sure, is just what you end up with on the web where you have to click
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  OK to accept all cookies.
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  You know, it'd just be like every single thing would just be like every big company has
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  donated to both parties.
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  Yeah.
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  Qualifies and caveats everywhere.
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  Yeah, we all get.
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  Well, how have you found the past 12 months, maybe two years of like sort of becoming like
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  anointed as this like sooth sayer or like whisperer to like a generation, whereas like
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  you're expected to be able to interpret to Fadi Dutties, what a certain cohort of young
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  women think about everything?
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  It's quite strange because I don't see myself that way and that sounds like the humble
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  thing you're forced to say.
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  But of course, to think that you are the voice of a generation or something is ridiculous
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  because that pressure would be too much to bear, like you couldn't actually just go out
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  and work every day if you thought that was your reality.
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  But I also think it's interesting that so many people think that I am the gendered voice
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  when actually I have more followers and a bigger audience over the age of 55 and under
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  the age of 24.
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  Yeah, that's just because I have nothing to do.
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  Maybe.
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  Oh, people just go out and say, oh, she's a lovely looking young girl, I'm just talking
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  with a lot of sense.
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  But like after the press club, the biggest response I had was from male boomers.
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  And you know, I did grew in a couple of weeks, go two weeks in a row around the election.
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  And again, the biggest response was from, you know, baby boomer men, yeah, advertising.
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  Yes.
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  And again, it was baby boomer men.
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  And I think it's because as much as Gen Zed are sort of becoming politically engaged,
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  you know, under the age of 23, 22, you're not really there yet.
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  I think university is a massive pathway to that.
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  But at 26 now, I still find that the majority of my followers are 10 years older than me.
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  And that's quite interesting because I think it speaks to this sort of disillusionment
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  from mainstream media generally, but an interest in the fact that I think also I'm more power
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  to more than a lot of female creators because older people tend not to sexualize me.
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  They see me.
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  I'm also a six foot two woman.
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  I kind of carry more masculine traits.
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  And I think that comes with a strange sort of persona that's different as well as
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  a young woman.
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  I think there's a series of sort of advantages and privileges that I have that mean the
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  position I mean carries weirdly more respect immediately than a lot of my peers I think
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  receive, which is unfair.
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  Isn't that a choice though?
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  I mean, you say that you're six two and that you don't code as like a sexy bombshell,
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  but you easily could.
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  I mean, you could wear the kinds of outfits that other influencers wear and you could lean
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  into the camera when you talk.
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  So your cleavage shows you're making a choice about the kind of division of feminism that
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  you think is right for you.
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  Correct.
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  No one ever says that to me either.
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  It's completely true.
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  People will be like, oh, yeah, that's interesting, but no one actually says is that purposeful
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  of course it is.
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  Of course it's purposeful.
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  I think that's really interesting because people often mistake like a purposeful decision
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  with like calculation or I'm being so sort of manipulative or strategic.
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  And it's like, no, I just, this is who I am.
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  Well, no more manipulative or strategic than the person who's leaning their cleavage into
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  the camera.
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  Well, no, I think it's just an individual choice.
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  And for me, you know, I think there's a lot of opportunities workwise that would come
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  with leaning into the sort of like attractive young woman element of this, but that's
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  really resonated with me.
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  Like I've never felt like that person.
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  I've always been genuinely like the nerd in school.
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  And I think actually the thing I carry is I do lean into the fact that I'm six foot
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  two that I have that presence that I lean into charisma and fun and humor a lot of the
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  time.
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  Like I love to make a joke.
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  And I think that a lot of the left is missing that too.
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  I think it's what makes us less lackable and less accessible in many ways.
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  So I like the joy piece a lot of the time, but I don't really lean into like attraction
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  or sexy or appearance based off.
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  I always say like that's the least interesting thing about me.
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  And if I want to go into politics and things like I do sell vibrators.
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  So I do lean into it in some way, but it's more from the sort of like pleasure is political
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  lens than the I'm attractive lens.
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  I think there's like a series of purposes I make about how I speak to people.
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  And I think it allows me to reach men in different ways.
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  What do you make of the battle that seems to be going on amongst young women, especially
• 13:35
  in the influencer space?
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  Not young, but I mean about the definition of feminism and the way that females should
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  represent themselves on social, you know, Clementine Ford, Abby Chatfield, both women
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  who I respect and who I'm friendly with are in this kind of battle about whether or
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  not, you know, the sort of playing up of sexuality and the commentating is a way of demeaning.
• 13:56
  I don't know the point that you're making and attracting eyeballs for the wrong reasons.
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  I think that we need to admit at a base level that no matter what you're doing with your
• 14:05
  appearance, it is a commodity in some way.
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  So whether you're trying to like play into the modesty or play into the sexualization,
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  no matter what you're wielding as a commodity.
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  So how you do that is a choice and everyone is actively making that choice in some way
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  or another.
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  And I think that like it would be hypocritical of me to say like, oh, you know, hypersexualizing
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  yourself is not feminism or something.
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  It's just different kinds of feminism.
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  I don't think one is worse if you want to show off your body and be free and autonomous
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  in that way.
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  So it's different to the way I'm actually activating that autonomy and agency.
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  So that you're interesting with Clementine Ford and Abby Chatfield, Clementine Ford also leveraged
• 14:37
  the same sort of criticism at the same time as Abby against me, but the headlines are
• 14:41
  at the end Clementine because they were both responsive.
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  They both chose to lean in and engage in that conversation, whereas I'm actually not interested
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  in using any sort of conversational capital I have to focus on that kind of commentary about
• 14:53
  another woman.
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  I don't think it's right or wrong, but it's just not what I wanted to choose to lean into.
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  What was Clem's critique of you?
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  She says I'm intolerable and that I'm performing political engagement.
• 15:03
  What's the difference between performing political engagement and political engagement?
• 15:07
  The thing about, it already makes me stressed.
• 15:12
  You can see and even the way I'm talking about it, I find it so nerve-wracking to engage
• 15:16
  in these sort of in-fighting in the left because to me I say I can't prove to her that it's
• 15:21
  not a performance.
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  And why should I?
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  Because someone who is, I've now built a career from a hobby to a career in trying to
• 15:29
  passionately educate the Australian population around why we should be politically engaged
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  and why we should be politically literate and what that difference it can make in our
• 15:36
  own personal everyday lives.
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  And if that's a performance to you, I can't convince you out of that.
• 15:41
  If you've decided to find a gotcha moment for me and say you're lying, you're not real,
• 15:46
  you're fake, you're not a feminist, I don't know why would I sort of shake my hands in
• 15:50
  the air and say I'm going to try and beg you to believe me and try to convince you.
• 15:54
  For me, I just think what a waste of time and what a mean unfounded criticism.
• 15:58
  There is good criticism.
• 15:59
  Actually, Clementine, I talked about this recently a couple of months ago when I had the
• 16:02
  opportunity to interview the Prime Minister before the election.
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  Clementine also leveraged some criticism against me saying, it's something to the effect
• 16:09
  of, if he's comfortable coming on your podcast, you're not doing enough.
• 16:14
  And the response to that, I thought that's actually a really valid conversation to raise
• 16:17
  and I want to respond to this because I think that's good criticism and valid criticism.
• 16:21
  Not the performance of political engagement, I think that's again baseless.
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  But with the piece around the PM interview, the conversation I wanted to have there was,
• 16:29
  I understand why people, especially in the left who like, I am a big, big conversationist
• 16:34
  on the piece of what is happening to Palestinians against by Israel at the moment.
• 16:39
  But me going and questioning Albanese on his lack of action, I believe on that front
• 16:43
  is questioning a leader that's been elected to serve us.
• 16:46
  That's not platforming, that's not endorsing, that's questioning a leader, that's taking
• 16:51
  an opportunity to ask those uncomfortable questions and have that dialogue.
• 16:55
  And I think that it's really unfair for a lot of people on the left to wage more criticism
• 17:00
  against me on that basis than actually against Alba in the first place.
• 17:03
  And so I think that...
• 17:04
  Well, maybe.
• 17:05
  I mean, it depends whether or not you're presenting the, your position as a journalist.
• 17:09
  And I know you don't really think of yourself that way.
• 17:11
  But there is a phenomena in podcast stand of like the friendly softball interview where
• 17:17
  the politician knows that they can go on and that they're really not, their feet aren't
• 17:20
  going to be held to the fire about anything in particular.
• 17:24
  Alba didn't come on this show, but like I'm always in the same position as you are
• 17:29
  if I'm interviewing a politician, how much do I want to, do I want to completely burn
• 17:33
  every bridge and alienate them forever by, you know, being a raving partisan.
• 17:39
  And at the same time, I don't want them to sit there and I don't want it to be like
• 17:43
  a cozy hug fest.
• 17:44
  And in that respect, Clementine is right.
• 17:47
  But do you feel that you did push Alba adequately on Gaza?
• 17:50
  Yeah, I do.
• 17:51
  And I would say the only thing I was disappointed in myself about was I think that I asked
• 17:55
  harder questions and I asked questions that were more aligned with the journalists and
• 17:58
  I wouldn't say that was softball.
• 17:59
  I don't think that, I don't think I'm a journalist.
• 18:01
  I don't think it was a journalist to get into it, wasn't, you know, Sarah Ferguson.
• 18:03
  That's not what I'm claiming to be, but it's not the only form of valid discourse
• 18:06
  we know that.
• 18:07
  And I asked Alba about lack of climate action.
• 18:10
  I asked him about, and I, you know, said like what I believe is Israel's genocide against
• 18:14
  Palestinian as I said those words to him.
• 18:16
  And again, I got a politician's response.
• 18:17
  I got exactly what I expected.
• 18:18
  So in that way, I thought like I did push back hard enough and I'm disappointed in myself.
• 18:22
  But did I ask questions?
• 18:23
  Well, I'm not sure that the, the asking questions crowd really understand, I mean, at the risk
• 18:30
  of pulling rank here, like having done, having been to journalism school and worked as
• 18:34
  a professional journalist for years and had a radio show, I think a lot of people misunderstand
• 18:39
  what good journalism is.
• 18:40
  And they think that it's about the gotcha question that is going to put the person in
• 18:44
  an uncomfortable situation and make them flounder and get embarrassed because you're
• 18:49
  ramming them with the same question 20 times.
• 18:51
  And so they get flustered.
• 18:53
  I don't think that's actually very revealing.
• 18:55
  I mean, I come from the school of, if you suspect that your guest is a hypocrite, try to
• 19:01
  find a way to demonstrate to the audience the hypocrisy.
• 19:05
  If you think they're a liar, try to find a way that the audience will go, that guy seems
• 19:11
  a bit fishy.
• 19:12
  You know, if you think that they're a coward, try to demonstrate their cowardice in the
• 19:17
  room, that I think is actually revealing because they're not prepared for that.
• 19:21
  They, Anthony Alpinese, can answer a question about his role in Palestine until a cow's
• 19:25
  come home.
• 19:26
  You could spend two hours with him, hectoring him about it.
• 19:29
  And it's nothing he hasn't heard before, really.
• 19:32
  So like I always sort of face those critiques with a grain of salt and being like, you know,
• 19:38
  I interviewed Andrew Taylor, the shadow treasurer at the time, because I thought he would
• 19:42
  probably be the next prime minister after Anthony Alpinese.
• 19:46
  And everyone's like, why didn't you get stuck into his water dealings when he was, you
• 19:49
  know, this company that he used to be involved with was selling water to the government, water
• 19:54
  rights in the outback.
• 19:55
  And I was like, do you think that he doesn't have a perfect response?
• 19:59
  It does, do you think that he doesn't know that a thousand times better than anything
• 20:03
  that I could possibly throw at him?
• 20:05
  I want to reveal to people what his character is, what his shortcomings might be, what his
• 20:09
  flaws might be, you know, what his strengths are.
• 20:11
  Yeah.
• 20:12
  And there's a utility in that.
• 20:13
  No, absolutely.
• 20:14
  And I think when it came to the interview with Alba, there were obviously issues that
• 20:17
  I wanted to hit because I think when we're thinking about the audience that I have in
• 20:22
  the listeners of the podcast, they're not people he's trying to convince from a p to
• 20:26
  dot and vote to a labor vote.
• 20:28
  They're people he's trying to convince from a teal or a greens vote to potentially a
• 20:31
  labor vote.
• 20:32
  And so I understand that my audience doesn't want to hear him talk about p to dot and
• 20:36
  so every question, I was like, they don't want to hear about that.
• 20:38
  Like, let's beat Frank here.
• 20:39
  You're going to struggle to convert a single vote from this audience.
• 20:42
  This is not actually what it's about.
• 20:44
  I want to talk to him about the prospect of minority government.
• 20:46
  I wanted to see him position himself against the greens and teals.
• 20:49
  And what he had to say, I think that was actually far more exposing than any actual
• 20:53
  political issue I asked him about, any particular policy platform.
• 20:57
  And so I was actually most proud of that.
• 20:58
  And the sort of conversation we had there, which, you know, which he basically denied
• 21:02
  his will to work with any of them turns out he doesn't have to now.
• 21:06
  You know, but I think again, this idea that I can't have a conversation or that it's
• 21:10
  inherently going to be weak because I don't have a journalism degree, I think is bullshit.
• 21:14
  So I think that there's a level of just like blatant unfairness in the assumption.
• 21:18
  And most of the people throwing criticism didn't bother to listen to it.
• 21:21
  Did you invite p to dot and on the show?
• 21:22
  Yes.
• 21:23
  I am twice or three times, I think, too.
• 21:25
  I did sell 5,000 shirts.
• 21:26
  It's a good morning to everyone except p to dot and so I understand why the invitation
• 21:30
  wasn't accepted.
• 21:32
  On this question of political engagement, like, it irks me a bit.
• 21:36
  The if an activist who is on the ground in Gaza, distributing humanitarian aid says that
• 21:44
  you're just feigning political engagement, okay, fair enough.
• 21:49
  You know, they're actually walking the walk completely.
• 21:51
  But political engagement online and in the media is to me a little bit like generosity
• 21:59
  or courage where the faking of it is the thing like pretending to be courageous is the
• 22:06
  same as being courageous, pretending to be generous, you know, if you're actually doing
• 22:11
  it is generosity.
• 22:12
  I mean, like talking about issues is a valid way of airing them.
• 22:19
  What is not valid is to sit behind your phone and type away angrily and try to troll people
• 22:25
  and dox people and cancel people for holding the wrong beliefs or belonging to the wrong
• 22:31
  ethnic group or something, which a lot of people in this particular issue have been doing
• 22:35
  since October 7, 2023.
• 22:38
  And then think that you're actually achieving something in the real world that is going
• 22:41
  to translate to any better life for people in Gaza.
• 22:44
  Completely.
• 22:45
  Exactly what you said, when it comes to online activism of all sorts of advocacy, realistically
• 22:50
  what everyone wants is for someone to say something for the first time.
• 22:54
  And actually my inherent worry with the sort of the keyboard warriors on the left who say
• 22:59
  like nothing you do is good enough to a large group of people, to hundreds of thousands
• 23:03
  of people that follow them, what they're doing is scaring anyone out of trying.
• 23:07
  Because you know, when you've been online and your job has been to speak to large groups
• 23:12
  of people about political issues, there is always going to be fear that comes with getting
• 23:15
  it wrong or making a mistake always.
• 23:17
  But when those same people that understand that fear deeply are perpetuating to those
• 23:20
  who've never spoken out before that you will ultimately never be good enough and you
• 23:24
  will always fail, one, it communicates this very exclusive membership of the left, which
• 23:28
  is one of the inherent issues I think that people feel unwelcome and they feel unable to
• 23:32
  make a mistake and still be welcome.
• 23:34
  I think that exclusionary process is just so uninviting if we want people to just do
• 23:38
  one pragmatic step every day to get a little bit more politically engaged.
• 23:42
  I think it's really hurtful and it's harmful.
• 23:46
  And I think that what it says is you'll never be good enough and it's really, it's that
• 23:51
  idea that like I am pure and you are inherently not and I really reallegates that because I
• 23:56
  think it's just so hateful and it's what we accuse the far right of doing.
• 24:00
  So I have a huge problem with that because I, you know, I do understand the criticism
• 24:04
  of certain performance, but I think at a baseline, people are trying.
• 24:09
  People are trying to get it right and we should welcome that and have gentle conversations
• 24:13
  about maybe what the next step is, rather than accusing them, which can never be proven
• 24:18
  or disproven of it being for fake reasons or for, you know, any sort of disingenuous claim.
• 24:24
  If someone is sharing something on social media, they're, they're taking a fearful step,
• 24:29
  probably a nervous step, which contradicts the views of maybe their family members,
• 24:32
  their friends.
• 24:33
  Well, they may be.
• 24:34
  It depends.
• 24:35
  Like all speech, it depends whether or not you're talking bullshit for cynical reasons
• 24:37
  or you're saying good things for right reasons.
• 24:39
  I mean, there are billions of people and there are billions of, I will not, I do think
• 24:43
  there is something corrosively conformist about the way in which mobs can develop online
• 24:48
  and fashionable issues can become sort of mandatory and they can become, as you say, a sort
• 24:54
  of coercive thing of like, why are you not posting a black square on Twitter today in
• 25:00
  solidarity with like the crimes of police against, you know, now First Nations brothers
• 25:05
  is, I don't know.
• 25:06
  I was shopping.
• 25:07
  Well, I would say that is the perfect example of performance, right?
• 25:11
  Because I remember when that happened in 2020, the BLM black squares and what that did
• 25:14
  was drown out the actual resources and the actual donation links and everything that
• 25:18
  people could use to actively learn and take a more genuine step towards helping and contributing
• 25:23
  to the cause.
• 25:24
  But I also think this is where one of the inherent problems of social media is someone
• 25:27
  pointing another person saying, you've never shared something to your story on Instagram
• 25:31
  while that person might have donated $3,000.
• 25:33
  Exactly.
• 25:34
  Because, you know, quietly.
• 25:35
  Yeah.
• 25:36
  And it's not to say that they shouldn't also share, but it's to say that you cannot measure
• 25:40
  someone's humanity or moral conscience or political leanings purely by their Instagram
• 25:43
  story.
• 25:44
  And I think it's just so deeply unfair.
• 25:46
  And I'd say that as someone who's built a career in actually making posts about these
• 25:49
  issues, I would never look at someone and make a pure judgment based on that.
• 25:52
  Yeah.
• 25:53
  No, it's fascinating.
• 25:54
  I mean, I also just think that there's a lot of people who know a lot more than any of
• 25:58
  us do about these issues who are thinking hard about them.
• 26:01
  And there are some, sometimes it's good to shut up.
• 26:04
  Like, I mean, does everyone have to always have an opinion about everything?
• 26:07
  Oh, after the election, I've made two or three posts and none have really involved my
• 26:10
  face.
• 26:11
  And I think like it's been a few weeks now.
• 26:12
  And it's because after the press club, I was like, just do not be anywhere.
• 26:16
  People are sick of you.
• 26:17
  Stop, stop.
• 26:18
  You know, and it's like the coalition getting back together or whatever.
• 26:20
  I'm like, oh, I've got to say something.
• 26:22
  Yeah.
• 26:23
  And I'm like, but just take as much of a break as possible because I don't need to have
• 26:26
  something to say.
• 26:27
  And I think when I was 22 and I found a cheek, I was like desperate to have the most,
• 26:32
  I was the person I now criticize.
• 26:34
  And I was desperate to have this angry opinion that was polarizing and got clicks and shares.
• 26:39
  And it's, and people would say like, oh, you've become more moderate, but I actually think
• 26:42
  it's just that I've become more considered as to where I'm needed and what I'm actually
• 26:45
  trying to achieve with what I'm saying.
• 26:48
  And I still have those moments where I go, this is just really going to be a funny thing
• 26:51
  to say.
• 26:52
  But most of the time as a 26 year old, even now, I'm like, no, like, what is the purpose
• 26:56
  of this?
• 26:57
  What is the intent of the impact?
• 26:58
  And actually examining that, I think I've become a much better commentator online through
• 27:02
  that sphere too.
• 27:03
  If you have the perspective and the distance now to notice the ways in which you were blinded
• 27:08
  or flawed when you were 22, what do you think 35 year old you will be looking back on as
• 27:13
  26 year old you are noticing?
• 27:15
  I actually think, I think about that a lot because obviously every time you commit something
• 27:19
  to print and especially someone who wants to pursue a political career, you have to be
• 27:22
  concerned of these things.
• 27:23
  Like, how will I feel about the fact that I had to vibrate a launchers in the space of
• 27:27
  a year when I'm 35 and I'm trying to run a political campaign or continue to be in politics?
• 27:31
  I do back myself and you have to take everything as a timestamp and I understand why I make
• 27:36
  the decisions that I do now and I consider them.
• 27:38
  I think when I'm 35, I'll probably look back and think, you were so concerned with
• 27:42
  whatever I'm thought about you.
• 27:44
  You were so concerned with maintaining likeability and relevance.
• 27:48
  I've grown a lot since I've been 22, but I'm still so deeply affected by what Clementine
• 27:52
  Ford says.
• 27:53
  So when you just drop it, if you know that the wiser version of you advises you too,
• 27:58
  she doesn't advise me to drop it.
• 28:00
  She's just concerned that I care so much about every single person's opinion of me and
• 28:06
  every single comment.
• 28:07
  I don't look at all of the comments, but I think that older me already feels sad that
• 28:12
  I spend so much my time focused on this.
• 28:13
  So what are you not?
• 28:14
  Because I'm not there yet.
• 28:15
  I'm trying to be slowly, but I can't just wake up tomorrow and go, I don't care because
• 28:19
  I think it's important to care too.
• 28:21
  I think it's really important to work out what is good criticism and what I should be
• 28:25
  learning from and reflecting on.
• 28:26
  You have to have that personal interrogation, otherwise you're not going to grow.
• 28:29
  But I think right now the weight of that criticism is it's so loud.
• 28:34
  Personal interrogation is vital and valid and laudable.
• 28:38
  It is unlikely to me that the best source of it is online comments.
• 28:42
  Completely.
• 28:43
  And I am so grateful that like the people around me are critical, engaged, intelligent,
• 28:50
  but fun and loving and like that's really where I, like if something happens online,
• 28:54
  I will take all of my best friends out and actually say, you need to tell me, what do
• 28:59
  you think?
• 29:00
  What is your best friend think?
• 29:02
  You know, if something's happened, if there's ever like a big blow up online, I always go
• 29:06
  and seek opinions in my friendship circles, but also outside of them to just actually temperate
• 29:10
  your check with people I know will tell me the truth.
• 29:13
  And I think that that's, I also think one of the best things about my life is that not
• 29:17
  of my close friends are very social media people.
• 29:19
  Right.
• 29:20
  It's the, they hate posting.
• 29:22
  My best friend in the world makes one post a year and it's like, I have to post a
• 29:24
  forum because she hates it so much.
• 29:26
  And it's really funny as 26 year old women that she's like allergic to it and I'm like
• 29:29
  every day 10 posts, you know, when we go on to, when we go on overseas holidays, she'll
• 29:36
  make one post from like the four week trip and she's like, I hated that.
• 29:41
  And that's it.
• 29:42
  Right.
• 29:43
  But I heard grandma was like, yeah.
• 29:44
  I mean, it's interesting that what you were saying about like the, the sort of judgmentalism
• 29:48
  of the left and the infighting of the left and the unwelcoming way in which we can alienate
• 29:53
  people sometimes and just as an aside, age fixes the problem of giving a shit what people
• 29:59
  think of you.
• 30:00
  It's just a natural thing.
• 30:01
  I think so.
• 30:02
  You know, you hear that from so many people.
• 30:03
  That's why I know that.
• 30:04
  10 years.
• 30:05
  Yeah.
• 30:06
  It's just, it's great.
• 30:07
  Like not just becoming like unfuckable with and being like, who the fuck is.
• 30:11
  But the, I mean, the evolution of the left into this quite doctrinaire orthodox set of
• 30:19
  warring tribes who are very focused on the on sensitivity on victimization on microaggressions
• 30:26
  on making sure the traditionally disenfranchised communities are uplifted and that we acknowledge
• 30:31
  our own privilege and that we sort of think about ourselves by turning the volume up on
• 30:34
  our difference and our sexuality and our LGBTQIA plusness and our racial, you know, history
• 30:40
  and our acknowledgements of country.
• 30:42
  That phenomenon is a phenomenon that you have grown up in really.
• 30:47
  I mean, the last time I remember the left being a universalist, globalist left of the Martin
• 30:53
  Luther King Gandhi Obama vane was in the 2000s, really, during the Obama administration
• 30:59
  before the financial crisis when you're a kid.
• 31:03
  What do you make of where the left is at the moment?
• 31:05
  And I'm interested that you notice it as being an unwelcoming place because to someone
• 31:08
  who was a lefty, you know, at uni in the 2000s, for me, when it was all about like treating
• 31:16
  everybody equally the past decade has been head spinning in, I think, obviously a not
• 31:21
  a very good way because we've got Trump and a rise of the phone, right?
• 31:25
  Yeah, no, I think that's a really interesting point.
• 31:28
  And I think that in the Trump world we're now in, there has been a global swing to the
• 31:32
  right in the last six to 12 months.
• 31:34
  And that's been, I think, had interesting impacts in that it's almost spaced the left
• 31:39
  between, you know, I think there is still and a great acknowledgement for the requirement
• 31:43
  of sensitivities and the uplifting of marginalized voices and everything that you just described.
• 31:47
  That is at the core of what I believe the left is.
• 31:49
  And I think it's a good thing, ultimately, like, that's what we should be striving for.
• 31:52
  That's what I think, you know, I see.
• 31:53
  What if it turns off 60% of the population?
• 31:57
  I think it's not.
• 32:00
  When we say turns off 60% of the population, my, my thought process there is the concept
• 32:06
  you described in all of the things that the left encompasses right now, those aren't
• 32:10
  the things that are turning 60% off.
• 32:12
  It's the way it's presented as you need to be 100% perfect on all of these issues immediately
• 32:18
  or you're not welcome in this space.
• 32:20
  It's the way that we don't hold someone's hand through that learning process.
• 32:24
  So for me, one of the lines that really bothers me most that I see in every comment section
• 32:28
  in any left wing space is do your own research and educate yourself.
• 32:33
  And the thing I think as someone who grew up in a regional area in New South Wales in
• 32:36
  Orange, I went to a conservative Catholic school, my parents are conservative voters until
• 32:40
  the last election, the Scott Morrison, sorry, federal election in 2022.
• 32:46
  I was in a conservative household and had conservative views and it wasn't until I got
• 32:50
  to university and met people with diverse views, with diverse backgrounds who actually
• 32:56
  took the opportunity to explain things to me that I now have all of these progressive
• 33:00
  views that I have built on because of those pieces of work that other people did with
• 33:05
  me unpaid and actually just explain their life experience to me, like that's basic human
• 33:09
  connection and conversation.
• 33:11
  And I had friends who I asked so many questions to, you know, like gay friends who I was like,
• 33:16
  how do you have sex?
• 33:17
  When I was like 17, 18, I'd never met someone who's openly gay before I was like, can
• 33:20
  I just ask you?
• 33:21
  And they were like, I love the fact that you asked some people pretend to be tolerant,
• 33:24
  but have these weird expressions and are sort of grimace or have a reaction, whereas
• 33:29
  you'll just be like, can you just, I'm actually really interested, you know, I genuinely
• 33:32
  want to understand what your life is like.
• 33:35
  And that's when I was 17, 18 and now I can take the time and explain it to others so that
• 33:40
  a First Nations person or an LGBTQIA plus person doesn't have to spend all of their time
• 33:45
  explaining their experience or explaining pronouns or explaining particular language or
• 33:50
  an acknowledgement of country.
• 33:52
  And I think with the left, it's this like, I'm not going to do it because I don't have
• 33:56
  to.
• 33:57
  And I think as a white woman with a lot of privilege in this society, is it not part
• 34:00
  of my job to also explain to someone else what was once explained to me and be welcoming
• 34:04
  and say, it's okay if you get pronouns wrong a couple of times, have that conversation
• 34:07
  with me before you actually go and talk to someone with they then pronouns.
• 34:11
  I don't think it's the ideals of the left that are the problem.
• 34:14
  I think it's his presentation that if you're not 100% on board and correct in the way that
• 34:18
  you execute those values, you're done.
• 34:21
  So there are probably a few things going on, right?
• 34:22
  I mean, you're certainly right that the kind of dogmatism and the finger wagging, skulled,
• 34:26
  school mom kind of attitude that the left got into, I think largely it as a result of
• 34:30
  Twitter.
• 34:31
  Like it was just and as a result of the pandemic and you know, George Floyd, there was this
• 34:35
  moment where obviously the right got a huge boost of adrenaline and popularity because
• 34:41
  everyone thought, well, hang on, the left used to be the fun guys.
• 34:44
  In the 60s, like if you were a young person who wanted to say fuck you to authority,
• 34:49
  you were on the left, you were a woodstock, like you know, you were, like that was the exciting
• 34:53
  place to be.
• 34:54
  That was the side of politics that was having fun and for the past 10 years, the side of
• 34:57
  politics that's been having fun has been, you know, Donald Trump and Elon Musk throwing
• 35:01
  shit at the wall and it's party town USA and the left has been like, you're going to make
• 35:06
  sure that you shake things correctly and you put your pronouns in your email signature
• 35:10
  or like, you know, well, that's sort of jazz.
• 35:12
  So you're right that there's that phenomenon.
• 35:14
  At the same time, there is a change in a shift from a universalist conception of the left,
• 35:23
  which is about largely economic justice, which is comfortable talking about class, which
• 35:27
  is comfortable talking about ways to uplift the lives of working class people, especially
• 35:32
  the working poor, versus a left that is obsessed with the minutiae of differences.
• 35:38
  And so this whole learning thing, like, yes, it may be your job to help teach people,
• 35:42
  but that's also, that can land for people as a very patronizing or condescending way
• 35:46
  to think about it.
• 35:47
  Totally.
• 35:48
  Right?
• 35:49
  Like, what if I'm just not interested in, and also it can be quite an elitist, when we
• 35:52
  say 60% of the population might not be on board with this, I don't mean that the 60%
• 35:55
  and necessarily white straight people, like there are a lot of straight white university
• 36:01
  educated Chardonnay, sipping latte, sipping elites, you know, in academia who are very
• 36:07
  exercised by all this stuff.
• 36:09
  And there are a lot of working class Chinese shopkeepers who are just over, welcome to country
• 36:15
  and just think, like, just don't get it, just, like, leave me alone, like, why can't
• 36:18
  we all get on?
• 36:19
  We're all Australians.
• 36:20
  Like, why do we have to be upset?
• 36:21
  Why does, do we still need, why is Mardi Gras happening?
• 36:24
  Like, I don't have a problem with gay people anymore, like, why are these things?
• 36:27
  So to come in and with an attitude of, like, allow me to learn with you and, like, teach
• 36:32
  you about these kinds of things that you need to know, even if it's, yeah, intended
• 36:37
  in an inclusionary way, it's like, where the fuck do you get off?
• 36:40
  I'm trying to, like, feed my family and, like, pay my rent.
• 36:44
  But I think that the answer to that is not saying that I'm going talking down to someone.
• 36:47
  I think that I understand that a lot of it might come across that way, but my statements
• 36:51
  that would be having a conversation with someone who thinks, I don't mind gay people
• 36:55
  why are we doing Mardi Gras.
• 36:56
  That's like, oh, well, let's talk about how it, like, it started off as a protest
• 36:59
  announced a celebration and it's a lot of fun and people like that.
• 37:02
  Like, it doesn't have to be that I'm standing at the chalkboard talking down to someone
• 37:05
  on the ladder about, like, well, this is the, you know, this is the history of, but it's
• 37:09
  actually about how you say to someone about, you know, the emergence of this neo-Nazi
• 37:13
  conversation and the welcome to country at the Anzac Day Dawn Service in Melbourne.
• 37:17
  Responding to that, there's a lot of young men in my life who said things like, well, cost
• 37:21
  too much and blah, blah, and I thought, you're just repeating mainstream media talking
• 37:25
  points led by people like Peter Dutton.
• 37:27
  Let's talk about the fact that, you know, we, you know, we live on the land of people
• 37:31
  who have been the oldest continuous culture in human history.
• 37:34
  It's an amazing thing that we should respect and recognize and like, let's talk through
• 37:38
  what your concerns are.
• 37:39
  Can you air them to me so that I can say, this is what a welcome to country is and this
• 37:43
  is why we do it.
• 37:43
  It's just basic respect and recognition in many ways.
• 37:46
  I was allowed to decline to do it.
• 37:48
  I mean, what happens if they say, okay, I absolutely respect the long tradition of Indigenous
• 37:53
  people on this land.
• 37:54
  We also don't need to open every Zoom meeting between four white, middle-aged women with an
• 38:01
  acknowledgement of country four times a day.
• 38:03
  Why?
• 38:04
  Why is it offensive or harmful to just acknowledge where we live?
• 38:07
  Well, I mean, they might just feel that way.
• 38:09
  No, I know, but that's what I would say back.
• 38:10
  I would say like, what is so offensive to you to take one minute at the start of a meeting
• 38:14
  to just acknowledge our country's history?
• 38:17
  Well, there are many reasons why they might think that, but I'm more interested in the
• 38:21
  question of whether or not they, they're wrong because this comes back to the finger
• 38:25
  waggy kind of like sensorialism of the progressive left where it's like, let me teach you
• 38:31
  why it's important to do this four times a day.
• 38:34
  Every single time we have another session that's some conference or something else, something
• 38:39
  rather.
• 38:40
  I mean, why might they think it's, well, they might find it boring, they might find it
• 38:43
  converse-standing, they might find it tokenistic, they might find it glib, they might feel like
• 38:48
  it's a way for white elites to signal virtue to each other without actually doing anything
• 38:54
  for Aboriginal people.
• 38:56
  They might have friends who are impersonations people and the bush who just think it's
• 39:01
  all a bit of sort of academic masturbation by white elites in the cities.
• 39:07
  And I think for some it is, I do think that there are some Zoom calls between white academics
• 39:12
  where it is tokenistically used absolutely, but then I also think that kind of comes back
• 39:17
  to, for me, and it's not to say this is an answer necessarily to like the person thinks
• 39:21
  it's wrong.
• 39:22
  I do think it's wrong to have that sort of an objection.
• 39:23
  I don't think it's offensive.
• 39:24
  I think it's basic respect, but I think that there is a conversation to be had around
• 39:29
  the way in which white people wield this and it is tokenistic and it's not legitimate
• 39:32
  and it's overdone in the sense that it's almost offensive to indigenous people in the
• 39:37
  sense that it is white elites trying to outprove each other and outwoke each other in a way.
• 39:42
  But I still think the basic acknowledgement and recognition is important and that's
• 39:46
  an important part of Australian history and Australia's future.
• 39:49
  I think that all is a unifying factor.
• 39:52
  And I think that when we're talking about it, I would then say, okay, well, maybe if
• 39:55
  you're part of your protest or your disagreement or rebuttal is, you know, it is performative
• 40:00
  or it's not actually making a difference for Aboriginal people's lives, okay, what else
• 40:04
  would you like to see it workpost do?
• 40:06
  You know, I think that there's always this like rebuttal, but maybe without a solution.
• 40:09
  It's pointing out the dark without mentioning the light.
• 40:11
  And so I would always respond with like, if that is harmful or offensive to you, maybe
• 40:15
  what is the next step?
• 40:16
  Well, I think you're right.
• 40:17
  I mean, there's a tonal thing here and there's a lack of goodwill between like, especially
• 40:24
  from the left, I think, towards people who disagree with them.
• 40:26
  I mean, I was hosting my radio show on the ABC during the referendum.
• 40:31
  And it was very, very difficult like a tell for talkback callers to call up with well-intentioned
• 40:37
  criticisms of the referendum without fearing that the whole rest of the country was feeling
• 40:43
  like they're racists.
• 40:45
  You know, questions like, you know, why does this body have to be enshrined in the constitution?
• 40:49
  Why can't Parliament just pass it?
• 40:50
  You know, why should there be this thing for this group of people, but not for migrants
• 40:55
  who came here within the past?
• 40:56
  Now, these are, I'm sure you have articulate responses to each of those things.
• 41:01
  But what, my sort of theory of the case of the way that culture ebbs and flows and yins
• 41:06
  and yangs between backlash or between, you know, one movement and then a counter-movement
• 41:09
  and I think what we're in danger of seeing with Trump and the far right is that if you're
• 41:16
  trying to bank a whole bunch of wins without really winning over hearts and minds about
• 41:21
  why those wins are essential, but you just sort of kind of shame people or finger-wag
• 41:27
  people or try to teach people about why they're wrong and why you're on the right side
• 41:31
  of history, there is a deep human instinct to just say, fuck you.
• 41:36
  And at the moment, we've got people like on podcasts in the States who are openly
• 41:42
  debating whether or not like Winston Churchill was the bad guy in World War II and Adolf Hitler
• 41:46
  was actually the good guy and stuff like that.
• 41:49
  And this is going out to millions and millions of people because the way in which they're
• 41:52
  trying to throw shit at the wall and bust through the kind of conversational, you know,
• 41:57
  tripwires and try to just be a bit more provocative and playful is going into deranged spaces because
• 42:06
  they felt like there's no way to articulate their opposition and their frustration to
• 42:11
  the conversational norms and codes that have been imposed on them by the left without being
• 42:16
  accused of being a racist or a bigot.
• 42:19
  So it's like, if anything I say is going to have someone jump down my throat and be like,
• 42:23
  oh, you, oh, Pat, you're just such a backwards person, you have to get with the program and
• 42:27
  come along on our glorious new journey of, you know, hourly acknowledgments of country.
• 42:32
  Otherwise, we're going to, you know, you're committing a thought crime.
• 42:36
  Then they're going to be like, fuck this.
• 42:39
  And you don't want significant proportions of the country saying fuck this.
• 42:45
  No, I mean, no.
• 42:46
  I think I understand what you're saying because we've seen the rising really of a right-wing
• 42:50
  manuscript, particularly in the US in response to their election.
• 42:53
  And it's even interesting.
• 42:54
  I've been asked a lot about why in Australia, many of the independent voices that are rising
• 42:59
  up mostly are progressive.
• 43:01
  And my answer to that is that I think in the US, they have more moderate and left-wing
• 43:06
  media than we do.
• 43:08
  I think that they have Fox and it's far right, but their right-wing commentators rose
• 43:11
  up and became kind of the mouthpieces for much of the public during their election campaign
• 43:17
  because of CNN and MSNBC who presented more moderate and left-wing media in that country,
• 43:21
  whereas in Australia, majority of our mainstream media is right-wing.
• 43:25
  So the commentators that challenge the establishment that rose up will largely progressive voices.
• 43:30
  You mean in politics or the media?
• 43:31
  Politics.
• 43:32
  Yeah, right.
• 43:33
  They can lead up to the election.
• 43:34
  Our media landscape is further right on hold, on the whole, and therefore the anti-establishment
• 43:40
  commentators that rose up on social media were left-wing.
• 43:42
  Oh, that's interesting.
• 43:44
  And I think that this is not that that's a direct answer to what you were just saying,
• 43:47
  but to me, people feel like it's like, oh, Australian media and politics is becoming
• 43:52
  more progressive and ABC and the Guardian, a hate media.
• 43:54
  And it's like something that's criticizing Peter Dutton is not inherently hate media.
• 43:59
  And I think that the right have done a good job of making any faculty questionable.
• 44:05
  And so I think what's tougher me to hear in that is that I understand these large criticisms
• 44:11
  of what I would describe as like the sort of furthest left that's right.
• 44:17
  Yeah, I mean, I'm mostly talking about a non-line phenomenon and the cultural phenomenon
• 44:22
  that sort of oozes out of universities and, you know, the ABC and the Guardian, but
• 44:26
  it is not necessarily, um, it's certainly not my biggest issue with the legacy media,
• 44:32
  per se.
• 44:33
  Yes.
• 44:34
  No, I completely get that, but I think that when we're talking about this and I understand
• 44:37
  what you're saying, it feels ridiculous to me to be like, hourly welcome to countries
• 44:41
  or acknowledged, because it's just not.
• 44:43
  It's just not.
• 44:44
  And I can understand these critiques of people who are saying the left expect this, this
• 44:47
  and this, and they're going to jump down my throat and call me every name, because there
• 44:50
  are people that will do that.
• 44:51
  No, I mean, I'm not saying that there are hourly works to country.
• 44:54
  What I'm saying is the perception is.
• 44:55
  Well, slightly different thing.
• 44:57
  One thing is that the refusal of a person on the sort of elitist social justice left
• 45:05
  to countenance why anyone would be opposed to an acknowledgement of country or a welcome
• 45:10
  to country seems to me to be impervious to almost any extent.
• 45:16
  Like there is no response that they could tolerate to why an hourly welcome to country would
• 45:22
  be bad that wouldn't also, that couldn't also apply to a daily welcome to country.
• 45:27
  I'm not like, you know what I mean?
• 45:29
  It's like they have carved the definition of hate speech and of, you know, bigotry and
• 45:36
  white supremacy as being an opposition to this new norm.
• 45:41
  And so that's why I'm sort of being silly about it, saying like it could be hourly, because
• 45:45
  I don't think that it's actually a matter of time or place or extent.
• 45:50
  Once you've branded opposition to your own political point of view as being beyond
• 45:55
  the pale by definition, then you've shut down the conversation.
• 46:00
  Actually, what I think is also fascinating about that is that I completely understand
• 46:04
  that and I see many instances of this occurring.
• 46:08
  What I think both sides get wrong on this front and where we've sort of lost each other
• 46:13
  is that often we're actually agreeing in critiquing the system.
• 46:17
  There are a lot of points that I find on both sides when we step back from the conversation
• 46:22
  and make it actually a structural criticism rather than an individual criticism.
• 46:26
  We actually see eye to eye.
• 46:28
  I think the biggest failure of parts of both the left and the right is we have fallen
• 46:32
  victim to the culture wars that have been designed for us because these manufactured
• 46:37
  wars actually are distracting us from the class war failure or victims of.
• 46:41
  So I think part of the reshaping that I'm trying to do is one to sort of bring back the
• 46:45
  joy and humour to the left because I really love that part and I think it's absolutely
• 46:50
  inherent and it's necessary for success.
• 46:53
  But I think also understanding, you know, even at lots of levels, like for one instance,
• 46:59
  you know, for one example, I spoke recently, I've spoken extensively about quite anti-cosmetic
• 47:03
  procedures and saying that as a woman on the left is quite controversial because a lot
• 47:06
  of women will say, but it's my individual choice and the patriarchy hurts me.
• 47:09
  I'll say, I'm not criticizing you as an individual, but I am criticizing the system that profits
• 47:13
  of you hating yourself.
• 47:15
  And these examples are everywhere, whether it be the gas industry, it's the same sort
• 47:18
  of criticism where a lot of us are busy attacking each other's stances and not actually the
• 47:22
  political system, the power system that is actually benefiting from us in the comments
• 47:27
  section, hating each other and stopping any form of change.
• 47:30
  Yes, that's right.
• 47:31
  I think that's absolutely right.
• 47:32
  It's also catnip to the right for us to be squabbling on the left this way because they
• 47:36
  can always find some example of woke silliness or cancel culture or something like that that
• 47:41
  they can use to distract people from the regressive economic policies that they're imposing
• 47:46
  on everybody, which is why I've for a long time banged on about this on the left.
• 47:50
  And people are always like, why are you criticizing, you know, I don't know, wokeness and cancel
• 47:54
  culture when there are all these crimes of the right going on.
• 47:57
  And like because the crimes of the right wouldn't have any popularity or any currency,
• 48:02
  if we had a sane, economically just alternative for people, and this is something that Democrats
• 48:07
  in the United States are struggling with now, like what is the alternative, you can't
• 48:11
  just be an opposition to Donald Trump, you have to provide an alternative that is going
• 48:16
  to actually resonate in the heartland.
• 48:18
  And I mean, on the question of those structural things, do you see a way in which social
• 48:24
  media and influences and commentary are on balance helpful?
• 48:31
  I feel so frightened being on social media as someone who operates and has built a career
• 48:38
  there.
• 48:39
  It is one of the worst places a person can be.
• 48:42
  And that's quite difficult to reckon with, like actually facing the fact that my business
• 48:47
  genuinely benefits from awful things happening in the world when you think about it because
• 48:51
  people need me more because of how bad things are.
• 48:53
  I constantly say to people, I wish I was out of a job.
• 48:55
  I don't want to be doing this and I don't want for when something awful happens or for
• 49:00
  when something significant politically happens, for that to be a growth period for me, that
• 49:03
  creates such a strange psychological phenomenon for me.
• 49:08
  And I constantly sometimes have to shut my phone and go, I don't want to talk about this
• 49:11
  because it feels awful, but people are expecting me to offer some kind of articulation of what's
• 49:16
  happening and that's quite stressful and high pressure.
• 49:20
  But when I think about social media and whether it's net good, I think when it came to
• 49:24
  the election, of course, I got the outcome, this is one of the second or third best outcomes
• 49:27
  I wanted.
• 49:28
  And that I advocated for, which was I wanted to keep Peter Dutton out at all costs and
• 49:32
  that there were a range of other alternatives that we could have.
• 49:34
  You apparently weren't alone.
• 49:36
  Yes.
• 49:37
  This is vast majority of the Australian people felt that way as well.
• 49:39
  Absolutely.
• 49:40
  And I feel like I did play a some small role in assisting people in feeling more empowered
• 49:44
  when they went into the voting booth, you know.
• 49:46
  And that was really my core goal was that people went in and felt confident in the choice
• 49:50
  they're about to make, regardless of whether they agreed with me actually.
• 49:53
  I'm happy to have 100 criticisms because it's not about voting the same for me.
• 49:57
  It's about you feeling like you can make a value to life choice and that you're informed.
• 50:02
  And so I'm proud of what I did there.
• 50:04
  But in saying that the level of criticism and I think for me, the worst damage social
• 50:09
  media has done is the algorithmic effect of the 4U page in that now whenever someone sees
• 50:15
  a video that doesn't exactly reflect their personal experience, they think it's an attack.
• 50:20
  And I think that is the most harmful and damaging thing.
• 50:23
  There's attention spans, there's the sort of platforming of people who are deeply hateful
• 50:28
  or there's the platforming of people that have no expertise in climate.
• 50:31
  And I think those are dangerous elements.
• 50:33
  But I actually think the worst harm is that the repeated feeding to people of really
• 50:39
  narrow messages and really narrow world views that affirm their view and often nothing
• 50:45
  as a point of disagreement or contention or conflict means that we are so ill equipped
• 50:48
  now to have difficult conversations and that bothers me most.
• 50:52
  I mean, there's an added wrinkle to that, which is that the algorithm is not actually always
• 50:57
  feeding you things that you agree with.
• 50:59
  I've heard conservatives who don't want to regulate social media, for example, say things
• 51:03
  like, well, just look at anyone's feed, there's lots of stuff, it's not like a conservative
• 51:08
  doesn't see any left-wing staff or it's not like a progressive doesn't see right-wing
• 51:12
  staff.
• 51:13
  See the polls?
• 51:14
  Exactly, that's right.
• 51:15
  I mean, you see stuff that is going to keep you engaged and is going to maximize your
• 51:18
  time on site and is going to encourage you to share it or comment on it or whatever.
• 51:22
  And so you see things that are either generous and charitable towards your own point of
• 51:26
  view or absolutely ridiculous and demonizing to things that you don't agree with.
• 51:30
  You're unlikely to see things that are like a nuanced or respectful version of the other
• 51:34
  side.
• 51:35
  And I do think that if we want to head off, you mentioned the Australia Day thing just
• 51:39
  to close the chapter on the welcome to country, the stuff.
• 51:43
  My sense is that you had it been possible three years ago for people to say, oh, we really
• 51:51
  need to be doing a welcome to country at this, you know, we just did one this morning.
• 51:54
  How many times do we need to repeat it during the day without everyone's assholes puckering
• 51:59
  up a little bit and going off, fuck, are we just being racist here?
• 52:02
  If there'd been an expansive view of what the conversation can be without everybody pre-judging
• 52:08
  each other for falling into the wrong camp or being on the wrong side of history, then
• 52:13
  you wouldn't reach the point at which these flare ups happen because they would have been
• 52:17
  diffused in events like the bombs keep going off and these explosions, these cultural explosions
• 52:22
  keep happening on trans issues, on indigenous issues, on race issues, on me too, on domestic
• 52:28
  violence, on a whole bunch of things because we push, we keep kicking the can down the
• 52:33
  road saying we have to talk about things in this way.
• 52:36
  And if you talk about things in this way, then you're either a sexist asshole or your
• 52:39
  racist or whatever, and then they reach fever pitch and something breaks.
• 52:44
  And I think the algorithm and social media is contributing to that because we don't understand
• 52:48
  how to empathise with people who have slightly different points of view anymore.
• 52:51
  See, a lot of this is for me.
• 52:53
  I go, well, I don't really think that it's about like having a one-time decision made
• 52:58
  that we never discussed, I mean, ever again, I actually think when it comes to things
• 53:01
  like welcome to country, it's not my opinion to have on how it's done and when it's done.
• 53:06
  I would actually just literally say like this is something that is the decision of first
• 53:10
  nations people to make as to how they would like it done and conducted and what they think
• 53:13
  is appropriate.
• 53:14
  Like, it's just not my opinion to have.
• 53:16
  It's my listening opportunity.
• 53:18
  But then I think, you know, when it comes to these conversations and like how to sort of
• 53:21
  like stop the discussion at the start and have like a good public square discourse then
• 53:27
  is decided and we move forward so it's not these bombs, the reason I think we refer to
• 53:31
  them as like bombs going off when it comes to these different points of contention.
• 53:35
  Nice to talk about Rupert Murdoch and his influence.
• 53:38
  We see now that he has, you know, backed the coalition in every state and federal elections
• 53:42
  in 2010 and yet he doesn't really have impact on the outcome now.
• 53:47
  We can clearly see that.
• 53:48
  I don't think his influence is in driving voter behavior.
• 53:52
  I think it's in driving particular conversations and language into the public square.
• 53:57
  He can curb the discussion.
• 53:59
  He can't influence sentiment is my view.
• 54:03
  But the reason the bombs keep going off is because he keeps finding opportunities to plant
• 54:07
  the explosives.
• 54:08
  So I don't think it's necessarily that the public are actually naturally disdivided.
• 54:13
  I just think that the way the right wing media is driving the discussion has falsely
• 54:18
  convinced us that there is these huge problems when the language has just been distorted and
• 54:23
  obscured to make us feel like we're constantly attacking.
• 54:25
  Well, that's a convenient way for a progressive to only put the blame on the other side of
• 54:29
  politics.
• 54:30
  It's not my claim that the Australian people are inherently divided.
• 54:34
  It's that the way that we communicate with each other is is contorted and distorted and
• 54:39
  dysfunctional.
• 54:40
  I think it is.
• 54:41
  And it's harder.
• 54:42
  That is Rupert Murdoch and his minions noticing ways in which they can really less face
• 54:48
  that increased circulation.
• 54:49
  I mean, I don't think he cares about anything other than money really.
• 54:52
  I think his means of making money is to engage in populist right wing stuff because that
• 54:59
  sells and that's a business model that has worked very well for him.
• 55:02
  If he had a choice between shoving right wing talking points down our throat and losing
• 55:07
  money or making money and turning the volume down on those talking points, I think he'd
• 55:12
  opt for the money and he has done repeatedly throughout his career and purchase like the
• 55:17
  Wall Street Journal and a whole bunch of other newspapers.
• 55:21
  But the social media with a way that social media almost is for the left what Rupert Murdoch
• 55:27
  is for the right, which is a mechanism to amplify the worst it's worst instincts and
• 55:33
  to create disunity and squabbling and extremism and blind spots.
• 55:39
  So yes, you might be able to blame him for, you know, setting off the bombs, but why was
• 55:44
  their gunpowder in the bomb in the first place?
• 55:47
  The gunpowder in the bomb in the first place because we've refused to have frank, fair
• 55:52
  income, bullshit free conversations without tutting and weighing our fingers.
• 55:57
  That's my opinion.
• 55:58
  I mean, trans is another issue where it was for a very long time, you know, people were
• 56:03
  who are absolutely not transphobic, who are part of the community, who are like, you
• 56:07
  know, LGBTQIA plus absolutely, but who wanted to, for example, report or discuss on the
• 56:14
  controversies inside pediatric gender care where like, you know, exactly how to science
• 56:19
  psychologists respond to an eight year old girl who comes in with gender dysphoria.
• 56:23
  And there was an extremely intense activist group that was relentlessly ignoring any
• 56:30
  science that contradicted its ideology.
• 56:34
  And that battle was intriguing and people who reported on it, I mean, I know journalists
• 56:38
  who got who lost their jobs from, you know, Fairfax and other places for simply trying
• 56:42
  to report on that.
• 56:43
  And that's the kind of clustered, closed-mindedness that then ends up exploding in transphobia.
• 56:50
  Now you've got anti-trans bills and stuff in the United States, which I think could have
• 56:53
  been avoided had there been, had we tried, had we been less dogmatic about banking as many
• 56:59
  wins as quickly as possible without, you know, allowing people to express legitimate grievances
• 57:05
  about it so that we can all kind of bring as many people, as large a quorum of people
• 57:10
  together on the journey.
• 57:12
  But it's interesting you say even about like, oh, it's convenient for me as a progressive
• 57:15
  to put the blame on Rupert Murdoch.
• 57:17
  But I think my view on, I completely agree when you're saying that, you know, Rupert
• 57:21
  Murdoch for the right is what social media is for the left.
• 57:23
  I think that's a really good point.
• 57:24
  But I think it denies the fact that one has to come first and one has to have this culturally
• 57:29
  impact on our conscience, like a collective conscience for decades, which is what I think
• 57:32
  Rupert Murdoch has done.
• 57:33
  Like, if we had a robust diverse media landscape, if we had a really strong public offering,
• 57:39
  there wouldn't be the necessity of social media to have these spaces for dialogue and
• 57:44
  to try and challenge the establishment.
• 57:46
  If it weren't for what sort of problems Rupert Murdoch has perpetuated for decades across
• 57:50
  our country and the Western world, like I think that it's a response.
• 57:52
  What do you think it happens in places where he's not so prominent?
• 57:57
  Like the social media outcry.
• 57:58
  Yeah.
• 57:59
  Well, yeah, exactly.
• 58:00
  I mean, I think the, you know, you were just saying before here, it's much less of
• 58:04
  the US media than he does here, and there are big US outlets like the New York Times,
• 58:08
  which have a center left bent.
• 58:10
  Yes.
• 58:11
  But even, even...
• 58:12
  The social media still make a name even more crazy than it's making a name.
• 58:15
  Yes, but even particular, I mean, I think the US is more tribal in their political system
• 58:19
  by design, so that's an inherent problem with it that means that they're just as divisive
• 58:23
  as, I mean, I think they imply more divisive and divided than us because of that tribalism
• 58:27
  with the political system because they don't have compulsory or preferential voting,
• 58:30
  like I think that's inherently why.
• 58:32
  And then I don't have public media, I'm also saying.
• 58:34
  Yeah.
• 58:35
  Well, yeah, NPR, it's all going downhill.
• 58:36
  But I think that, you know, even when it comes to particular issues like Gaza right now,
• 58:42
  every outlet, Murdoch or not, it's not reporting adequately, it's not reporting accurately.
• 58:46
  I think there's like, there's a crisis for journalists globally right now, and I think
• 58:50
  that that's bleeding out into social media and the way that we communicate with each other
• 58:54
  because there is so much pent up frustration, validly, towards that lack of accurate reporting.
• 59:00
  I mean, it's also hard, like complex issues are hard to cover.
• 59:04
  I don't, you know, but there's certain aspects of this that aren't complicated.
• 59:08
  Well, it depends, I suppose, what outlet we're talking about, but I don't think the ABC has
• 59:11
  done a bad job of reporting on, you know, bombings of hospitals and schools and things in Gaza.
• 59:18
  I mean, we've been seeing it weekly.
• 59:20
  No, but I think also, you know, we've seen the language of cleansing used, we've seen that,
• 59:24
  you know, Benjamin Netanyahu is a wanted man, but we're still seeing so many headlines where
• 59:28
  none of those clear facts are centered.
• 59:31
  And instead, it's always, you know, a statement from Netanyahu as opposed to an action that he
• 59:36
  has clearly done or the fact that he is a wanted criminal. Like, I think that the way the story
• 59:40
  is centered and the way that headlines are written doesn't accurately reflect what is happening
• 59:44
  and chooses to obscure crucial material and information that we have that means this isn't complex.
• 59:49
  You know, so I think that yes, there may have been more confusion and there was a lot of people
• 59:55
  on the ground who were struggling and fighting in newsrooms to report in particular ways 18
• 59:59
  months ago, but we're in a very different position now and seeing media outlets slowly wake up to
• 1:00:04
  this, but still fail to kind of call this what it is, is confronting for people and overwhelming.
• 1:00:10
  Because they don't know who to trust.
• 1:00:11
  Do you want to be a left-wing group of murder?
• 1:00:15
  No. And the difference is that I want people to disagree with me.
• 1:00:18
  I don't want people, I don't say how I vote because, you know, I don't live in the electorates
• 1:00:22
  of the people that follow me, but you know, this is actually a conversation that comes up quite
• 1:00:26
  frequently and I understand the question. I don't, I don't want to own, I don't actually want to
• 1:00:31
  grow cheek to even be a newsroom. That's just not my goal. I want to enter politics and challenge
• 1:00:35
  the establishment and be a disruptor from within. But a big part of what I do is saying like to the left
• 1:00:41
  who is large parts of my audience, but also wanting to attract more people from conservative areas
• 1:00:46
  and more moderates and say, this isn't a bad agreement. I want to have robust discussion, but how
• 1:00:51
  that discussion occurs in respectful and interesting ways matters to me. How do we create a space
• 1:00:56
  or a community on social media, not where you're paying subscribers, but where you're a community
• 1:01:00
  of people who want to have commentary and dialogue, but make it sort of more respectful, more
• 1:01:06
  interesting and to have a higher baseline than social media is used to. I think that that will
• 1:01:11
  for disagreement and not to dare I say the word influence in that way. Yes, I wanted people to not
• 1:01:16
  have pitted up, but I didn't care whether you were voting Labour Greens teal whatever I wanted
• 1:01:21
  you to feel confident in yourself. Do you think Australians are conservative or progressive?
• 1:01:25
  I think Australians are conservative, but I think that that language has been misinterpreted
• 1:01:29
  to mean right wing in a way. I think Australians just like to conserve. I think Australians are
• 1:01:33
  naturally curious, naturally skeptical, and we like status quo. We don't, we're not excited
• 1:01:39
  about the idea of change, but we're not the US where we rail against it either. I think that we
• 1:01:43
  just want to sit back and we want to remain curious, but also we want to agitate the establishment
• 1:01:50
  and inquire, but I don't think that we are sort of we're not big fighters. We're not particularly
• 1:01:56
  noisy, I think, compared to other Western nations. What if the problem of Rupert Murdoch is less
• 1:02:02
  about Rupert Murdoch and more about us and what we want to pick up from the news stand and to
• 1:02:08
  click on online. Like this is a guy who he inherited an Adelaide newspaper from his dad in the 50s
• 1:02:14
  and in the 60s he turned it around and made it work and in the 70s he did it to the Australian
• 1:02:19
  and in the 80s, like the the New York Post it was not a it was not there was an unsuccessful paper
• 1:02:26
  and he has that sprinkle of pixie dust the times of London, you know, well, I know I think the
• 1:02:32
  post was in the 70s and the times in the 80s and then the Wall Street Journal in the 2000s like
• 1:02:36
  it's not like he's coming in and going like I'm going to twirl my moustache and you know pet my white
• 1:02:43
  cat in my lair and force everybody to read these things because I've been able to amass all of these
• 1:02:48
  successful publications. He buys distressed publications that nobody wants to read and he knows the mix
• 1:02:54
  of center right populist tabloidie clickbaitie splashy bitter gossip, bitter, you know, or mate,
• 1:03:02
  you know, and a bit like and there's that says something about what we about our worldview,
• 1:03:09
  about the worldview of the common Australian or the common American that that's the one they
• 1:03:13
  reach for to pay a quarter for at the new stand on the on Broadway. Completely and social media
• 1:03:19
  is just proved at time and time again. I mean, yeah, Rupert Murdoch when he was at Oxford was quite
• 1:03:23
  socialist. Like his early politics were far far more left than he ended up being in business
• 1:03:29
  and I actually don't believe that Rupert Murdoch is actually as far right as his political
• 1:03:36
  allegiances show. I think he's just an opportunist and I think he's a very successful businessman.
• 1:03:41
  Obviously, I have no desire to meet him or to know him, but I think his life story is something
• 1:03:46
  to be watched and actually looked at not with admiration or anything but with interest and intrigue
• 1:03:52
  about how he managed to convince the population that he should be really the conservative mouthpiece
• 1:03:57
  of the Western world. And I think that's a weird framing so that he convinced us that he should
• 1:04:02
  be the conservative mouth because you're taking way out you're saying I'm taking away our agency.
• 1:04:05
  Sort of. I think it's a cart before the horse thing. I mean, I think he is an extremely it's hard.
• 1:04:10
  He's really hard to get people to read something. Correct. It's harder to get people to pay to
• 1:04:16
  read something. Yes. So you need to have the sprinkle of pixie dust that is, you know, it can't
• 1:04:24
  all be bullshit and it can't contravene their instincts. So you need to have a
• 1:04:28
  cane sensitivity to what the sort of the tug of common sense feels like to a regular person to
• 1:04:36
  pull off what he has pulled off. How do you feel when you consume something that's gossipy?
• 1:04:42
  Board. Really? And then how do you feel when you read a really good piece of journalism?
• 1:04:48
  Like my mind's been expanded. Yeah. And I find the same. Like I do a podcast, big small talk
• 1:04:53
  is my weekly podcast. It's half pop culture and half news. The idea being that if you're a pop
• 1:04:57
  culture young woman and you're really interested in like the latest gossip about JoJo Siwa,
• 1:05:01
  you're also getting three hard political news stories in between your Taylor Swift moment, right?
• 1:05:06
  We joke about it as like putting the dogs medicine in peanut butter. People who are political come
• 1:05:10
  to it because they know they can then talk to their pop culture friends at coffee that weekend about
• 1:05:13
  the issue that they otherwise would have no idea about. The half, half balance gets people in. I
• 1:05:18
  know what I'm doing. I know it's partially inflammatory but also partially substantial. And I feel
• 1:05:22
  proud of the work that I do. But I find it. I have a lot of resentment for the fact that I also
• 1:05:27
  watch an occasional TikTok video on cortisol levels or a skincare routine and go, how do
• 1:05:31
  what the hell are you doing? Right? I'm embarrassed almost sometimes to be the 26 year old woman that I am.
• 1:05:37
  But I also know that when I read a really good book that is robust in its presentation of a
• 1:05:42
  political story or issue that I'm ultimately far more stimulated and I'm far more likely to
• 1:05:46
  recommend it and I'm far more likely to share it with a friend or gift it to someone, right?
• 1:05:50
  And I think that inherently there is a human inclination to pick up tabloid media to click on the
• 1:05:55
  link to send the screenshot to send the funny meme. But it doesn't, it can be attractive and it can
• 1:06:01
  get our money. I agree and I click in our attention. But it doesn't ultimately long term have
• 1:06:06
  impact or value. And I still think that is true for most people. I think that we're obviously
• 1:06:11
  enticed by the 10 second sound, but where the way that we're actually made to feel long term and
• 1:06:16
  the way that we have impact long term is with the robust. So I do think that Rupert Murdoch has just
• 1:06:21
  actually played into something and monetized something very clever, which is that sort of
• 1:06:27
  inflammatory piece of human behavior that we enjoy. But I think ultimately people do want
• 1:06:31
  quality. People do want meaning. And they will actually pay for it. And actually his most recent
• 1:06:36
  big purchase, the Wall Street Journal in 2007, is proof that people do pay for things. And he's
• 1:06:42
  always had that attitude, by the way. He's always pay walled, you know, back when it was a
• 1:06:45
  fad when the internet began when you were a toddler and the internet kicked off. A lot of news
• 1:06:52
  organizations just didn't know how to make money out of it because they're like, we've got no
• 1:06:55
  classified ads and people aren't going to pay. He was like, people will fucking pay. People
• 1:06:58
  are going to pay to get my stuff. And the level of whilst the, whilst the editorial page and the
• 1:07:03
  opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal are just deranged like Trumpist, like Republican
• 1:07:08
  talking points. The reporting is still excellent. A lot of people pay for pay for that rather than
• 1:07:12
  for the ideology. I mean, I wonder whether or not he is a self-solving problem in the sense that
• 1:07:19
  legacy media, unless legacy media does really good journalism and invent other ways of monetizing
• 1:07:26
  itself, like Whittle and things like that. I do it every day. The New York Times has figured
• 1:07:30
  this out like they do great journalism and they have a really interesting slate of contributors.
• 1:07:35
  People want both. I think the biggest danger to journalism is the tribalism of consumption.
• 1:07:39
  I actually think it's the fact that so many of us now like, I get really consumer. People say,
• 1:07:43
  you're my favorite or my only new source. That's a huge problem. Yeah. I mean, but also the change
• 1:07:51
  like is I worry at the same time that we're going to benefit presumably from some kind of a decline
• 1:07:58
  of the stranglehold of big media, big legacy media companies that the alternative at the moment,
• 1:08:04
  which is a bunch of randos mouthing off about what they think about hot button, social and political
• 1:08:11
  and cultural issues on TikTok, is not better necessarily. Things like Substag and Longform
• 1:08:18
  podcasts and things like that hold out a lot of potential. There are still no editors. There's
• 1:08:23
  still no fact checkers. So unless you're a journal or have a very strong spine in resisting audience
• 1:08:30
  capture and insisting on checking yourself and checking facts, it's going to be tricky.
• 1:08:35
  Yeah. I mean, it is inherently tricky. I think one of the mistakes people make when I actually
• 1:08:41
  had this conversation from Malcolm Turnbull once, which is really interesting where he said,
• 1:08:44
  we actually have a lot of media diversity in Australia. And I said, well, I disagree with that
• 1:08:48
  because we have a lot of great independent outlets doing some serious heavy lifting in this country.
• 1:08:53
  But they have to have paywalls and donation buttons to survive. And having diverse outlets when
• 1:08:59
  they're not read or have the same, anyone in the same reach as the major master's doesn't actually
• 1:09:05
  equal diversity. It has to be quality and it has to be accessible. And unfortunately, they require
• 1:09:10
  paywalls. And so I think that what you do have to pay. I mean, most of news core stuff have paywalls
• 1:09:17
  as well. Yeah, but I mean like ABC, Guardian, you know, Guardian is the donation button you can
• 1:09:21
  access it. But then we think about like crikey, Michael West, like all these smaller journalistic
• 1:09:25
  sort of outlets, I mean, any pro, you have to pay for any product. No, you don't have to pay.
• 1:09:30
  I mean, I think that we, there are a lot more products where you get more articles for free per
• 1:09:34
  month, like even just like the access at a base level where some of them just are entirely behind
• 1:09:39
  paywalls where somebody can access a daily newsletter. Like there's some things that have free
• 1:09:42
  product where it isn't that partly because people just want to read the daily telegraph more than
• 1:09:46
  they want to read Michael West. No, I think it's because they don't know their options actually.
• 1:09:51
  I think you're speaking as if the entire industry was born in the 2000s. I mean, without
• 1:09:56
  being consenting, like there have been lots of attempts to produce left-wing publications that
• 1:10:01
  have failed. It's not an accident. You know, it has happened. Like there have been, what was it?
• 1:10:06
  There was, I was trying to remember, the national times was a publication in the 70s and 80s in
• 1:10:11
  Australia. The independent weekly went from 2004 to 2010. That was out of Adelaide. The national
• 1:10:17
  observer in the States, they tried throughout the 60s and 70s. And like, I mean, I know that
• 1:10:21
  it's not all the time, but like it's not like no one has ever come up with the idea of like
• 1:10:25
  there's going to be a market for, yeah, independent left-wing media. There was a,
• 1:10:30
  Air America was an attempt to push back against right-wing radio in the States. I really loved
• 1:10:34
  it. I listened to it all the time. Malfrank and had a show. It failed. Like there's just something about,
• 1:10:40
  like this is interesting. I've never thought about this. There is something. Yeah, you know, it's not like,
• 1:10:45
  it's not like Rupert just had a bunch of stuff and then decided to publish whatever he wanted to
• 1:10:49
  publish. He's really adept at figuring out what the secret source is that people want to read.
• 1:10:57
  No one's denies his success. I can hate the man and still see that he's incredibly successful.
• 1:11:01
  Yeah. I can see that I will never be able to build something like he's built. Like I understand
• 1:11:05
  that. But I think it's also looking at the fact that, you know, currently media regulation in
• 1:11:10
  Australia, currently the landscape doesn't, there's not really the space to grow anywhere near what
• 1:11:15
  he's grown. The access and the audience and the eyes that he has because of these decades behind
• 1:11:19
  it. Yes, because he's good at it. But I don't think it's fair to say it's because the Australian
• 1:11:23
  population prefers to read the telecast. Well, he's certainly got a massive income and
• 1:11:26
  advantage. Yeah. And that's true. But that's true in any industry, right? I mean, it's a bit like
• 1:11:30
  saying that, I don't know, you know, our aviation sector, well, actually, that's a bad example,
• 1:11:35
  because Qantas is totally corrupt and has all the politicians in his pocket. But, you know,
• 1:11:39
  pick your, a pick your, you know, reasonably level playing field industry may be supermarkets
• 1:11:43
  or something like that. Like it's not that bullies and calls are forcing us to buy things that we
• 1:11:48
  don't want to buy. It's just quite a hard market to break into. That's exactly that's exactly
• 1:11:52
  the example. It's like it's not really fair to say, well, is Aldi doing something fundamentally
• 1:11:56
  wrong? It's like Aldi's doing a great job. They're just not, they don't have the resources. It's
• 1:12:00
  not like they're going to merely step up to compete with that. Yeah. And people are used to
• 1:12:03
  buying a worse and calls for decades. It's harder to transition than that of that routine.
• 1:12:06
  Yeah. Yeah. That's true. One of the things that you mentioned in your press club address was
• 1:12:11
  about sort of the accountability or the lack of accountability for media organizations in spreading
• 1:12:16
  bullshit or, you know, focusing on the wrong things. What does accountability look like? What
• 1:12:21
  does that mean? I think right now our media regulators look at over months the course of a
• 1:12:25
  complaint and then they give a slap on the wrist in a small fine that means absolutely nothing.
• 1:12:29
  And it doesn't encourage. So say if it was a complaint that a particular headliners defamatory
• 1:12:35
  or if it was a misrepresentation, I think that it will take months to investigate. And the
• 1:12:40
  public is never going to see the follow up and the outcome in the way that they saw the original.
• 1:12:45
  So the damage is done. The accountability isn't actually that publicized. And the penalty for that
• 1:12:51
  to hold them to account is quite small to negligible entirely. And it equates to a slap on the wrist.
• 1:12:57
  Don't do it again. But realistically, they're still monetising and they've still made a commercial
• 1:13:01
  business out of saying the misrepresentation or the defamatory thing. And because there's no real
• 1:13:06
  framework of accountability, they're happy to continue on that path because that people are less
• 1:13:10
  likely to actually pursue defamation claims as well. Like we think about what Daily Mail publishes
• 1:13:14
  every single day about women in Australia, that women globally. Like how many of them actually
• 1:13:18
  pursue defamatory complaints instead of just ignoring and saying that's just the way things are.
• 1:13:22
  Yeah. I think we've allowed things to get so out of hand but there's no real clear sort of
• 1:13:26
  integrity body with regulation body with teeth in this country. I think there could be something
• 1:13:31
  introduced like either sort of like reporting guidelines that are enforceable, especially around
• 1:13:37
  things like for me. I know at the press club one of the questions I got was like, do you think we
• 1:13:40
  should stop backgrounding with politicians? I was like, that's really not the first area I'd attack.
• 1:13:45
  I really, I don't really care. Like not right now pressing meaning an off the record interview
• 1:13:49
  with a politician. Yeah, where they have to be quoted. Yeah, they're basically getting politicians
• 1:13:53
  to say things about each other across parties or within parties to create gossip and stir
• 1:13:57
  and problems and don't have to be named. Whereas I would prefer to focus on the fact that so much
• 1:14:02
  of the domestic violence with coverage in this country says things like the headlines are dating
• 1:14:05
  up death when a man has murdered or has been charged with the murder of a woman after a second
• 1:14:10
  date from Tinder. You know, things like when a football player is accused of sexual assault,
• 1:14:15
  it's star player charged and then they go on the field next week. And it's not to say that I
• 1:14:20
  don't want them to on the field next week and that that's actually meaning the headline must
• 1:14:23
  reflect that. Obviously don't want them to on the field next week. But when we're talking about
• 1:14:27
  the actual enforceable reporting guidelines, there should be clear limits to if this is what has
• 1:14:33
  happened. A man has been charged with the murder of a woman that has to appear in the headline.
• 1:14:37
  There was a study in 2016 that said that 60% of headlines in Australia did not sorry 60% of
• 1:14:42
  headlines in Australia made the perpetrator invisible in crimes of domestic violence women and
• 1:14:46
  children that affected women and children. Like that she effect is outrageous to me because actually
• 1:14:51
  when you think about the commercialization of like what Rupert Murdoch would genuinely want,
• 1:14:55
  saying a man has been charged with murder is surely more clickable than actually removing
• 1:14:58
  the perpetrator making them invisible just saying a woman has died. I think it points to the fact
• 1:15:02
  that he wants to there is there is a a body somewhere that has decided that has influenced that
• 1:15:08
  they want to conceal this epidemic for a certain reason. And maybe it's because their subscriber base
• 1:15:12
  is part of the problem. What could the body be? Well, I think it's the editorial team. They are
• 1:15:17
  making a choice because it will offend or put off side a subscriber base a readership that doesn't
• 1:15:24
  want to know or realize or consider the gravity of the epidemic of violence against women.
• 1:15:29
  I mean, it'd be interesting to see it to do a study of that and to see whether or not that's
• 1:15:33
  certainly historically there's been a downplaying and just an underreporting of it and not thinking
• 1:15:37
  it's newsworthy at all because I should probably add it coming to or whatever. There's been that
• 1:15:41
  tradition. I would be surprised if since the me term movement that is still more pronounced
• 1:15:45
  on issues of domestic violence than it is in other areas where people get either killed or whatever
• 1:15:51
  like whether that happens also when a guy gets sucker punched outside a nightclub and is killed
• 1:15:56
  whether the passive voice is still is still used that way. I'm almost certain that there's not
• 1:16:00
  an editorial board decision but that these phenomena happen as a result of the soup that journalists
• 1:16:05
  are swimming in and that editors are swimming in where there's a kind of a way of doing things
• 1:16:10
  that is the corrosive or pernicious way of framing things rather than there's an instruction
• 1:16:15
  from on high. It's like a cultural blind spot. I don't think it's blind though. We know. We know
• 1:16:21
  there's a problem with it. The problem keeps being named. I remember when Bruce Lerman was on trial,
• 1:16:27
  the ABC kept publishing the Higgins trial. It's quite obvious that Bruce Lerman is the one on trial
• 1:16:33
  and that Brittany Higgins is actually a witness, the complainant witness to the case. She is not on
• 1:16:37
  trial but the fact that the media kept calling at the Higgins trial was simply to get clicks
• 1:16:41
  in from our public broadcaster. I pointed it out. It was changed. Maybe yes, this is a blind spot.
• 1:16:47
  But I think actually it's more what is the name that is more identifiable and what is the name
• 1:16:51
  that's getting more attention. That's sort of blind spot that is an agenda or some kind. That is
• 1:16:55
  an agenda to drive engagement. Yeah. If a famous person was killed, you would call the trial
• 1:17:04
  that person's name. That's the random person who killed them. Well, I think you can frame it
• 1:17:08
  without saying the Higgins trial. That is indicating that she is on trial. It's not. That's
• 1:17:14
  factually incorrect. Well, taking place in a context in which I think they understand that the
• 1:17:18
  reader knows that she's not on trial. But that's not fair. You don't actually know that because the
• 1:17:22
  way the public treated her was if she was. So I think the cultural implication and the social
• 1:17:26
  implication of that language is very real. Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably valid. That's
• 1:17:29
  interesting. I hadn't really thought about the perpetrator versus victim identifier. But I'm
• 1:17:35
  sure that what's happening is that the subredator who's writing the headline is trying to be as
• 1:17:40
  clicky as possible about so that people will understand exactly what the trial is because she's a
• 1:17:45
  person who made headlines. I understand. Which is not to excuse it, but I think it's less
• 1:17:51
  honest. It's less sinister, but maybe even more intractable because it's cultural rather than
• 1:17:59
  from on high. But I'm interested in solutions because I mean, this bumps up against
• 1:18:03
  very complicated issues of free speech and freedom of the press and what happens to non-mainstream
• 1:18:09
  legacy media outlets in this new regime as well. Set aside defamation for a moment because that
• 1:18:15
  is actually a, you know, a whole kettle of fish on its own. If you're talking about basically,
• 1:18:19
  sort of norms or like lies or like twisting misrepresentations and things like that,
• 1:18:27
  then in an ideal world would you have journalists be held to account by
• 1:18:36
  what the government thinks the correct point of view to be? Because that's sort of what it sounds
• 1:18:42
  like. You're going to have a government say you guys aren't writing your headlines correctly.
• 1:18:48
  No, I think that that's a really good question on regulation and government control. And I think
• 1:18:51
  that obviously it's going to raise huge points around censorship and free speech. I understand
• 1:18:56
  all the criticism. You have to be really careful about it. I do think that there can be baselines
• 1:19:00
  brought in around reporting guidelines. I don't know if they're implemented against the journalist
• 1:19:05
  themselves. I don't think that that's fair. I think that it has to be more about the actual
• 1:19:10
  body or the outlet or the mass head itself. But I mean, the problem is that in the independent
• 1:19:14
  media space, like you and I are our own publishers. So what happens if I write a headline that
• 1:19:20
  stinks according to the bureaucrats? I think that has to be worse than a stink. I think a stink is
• 1:19:25
  like downplaying the language of what it would be. If it was genuinely harmful, again, unfortunately
• 1:19:28
  to say like if it's defamatory, like I think there should be high thresholds for what makes
• 1:19:32
  something wrong here, what makes something like required to be held to account. If it is like a
• 1:19:36
  genuineness, if it's a willful misrepresentation, there's a difference from something that can be
• 1:19:41
  proven to be unintentional versus willful, right? When it comes to definition. What should I be
• 1:19:45
  able to lie if it's not defamatory? You should be able to lie. Yeah. If it's not defamatory. No.
• 1:19:51
  Yeah. No. That should be against the law. Yeah. I don't think that you, I mean, a lie in every day
• 1:19:58
  lie versus a lie that is spread to a million people through a headline has very different implications
• 1:20:02
  to. Right. But then we're invoking the government deciding what's true and what's false. I think this
• 1:20:05
  is an alcohol. This is fantastic debate. I actually think at a good idea that has been mentioned by
• 1:20:12
  other people, I'm not claiming it's my own, is the idea of like a fit and proper person
• 1:20:16
  test as to who can own media. I actually think that is a far more interesting conversation around
• 1:20:21
  this. What constitutes media? An outlet. Say who owns like a. Am I an outlet? How was your company
• 1:20:28
  set up? Going to go into that? Sure. I mean, I'm the director of a company of a media company.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah. Same. So I think that that constitutes constitutes an outlet. I also have not fit and proper.
• 1:20:38
  Why? That was interesting. I'm hardly kidding, but. Well, I mean, like Rupert Murdock and the case with
• 1:20:44
  their, you know, in the US election in 2020. And the suggestions, the accusations made by Fox
• 1:20:52
  News that there was election fraud that was driven by those outlets. When you drive a lie like
• 1:20:57
  that, that spreads a conspiracy to the American public that there was, you know, fraudulent
• 1:21:02
  voter sort of outcomes happening. Do you think that person is fit and proper to operate media after
• 1:21:07
  spreading that wide lie around a democratic process? Well, I personally don't think that person's
• 1:21:12
  fit and proper. So I wouldn't consume that product. But I think the downside of trying to adjudicate
• 1:21:18
  of having the government try to adjudicate who's fit and proper is likely to be higher than the
• 1:21:23
  downside of living in a world where lots of lots of unfit and improper people get to talk.
• 1:21:28
  I also think it doesn't have to be government. It could be an independent body.
• 1:21:32
  But if it's going to have any force, then that independent body is backed by the government.
• 1:21:35
  Yeah. But I think that the ability to issue fines and the ability to arrest people and
• 1:21:39
  there is still a separation of powers of some kind. Like I would only really encourage the,
• 1:21:43
  I understand especially looking at the US right now. Why would I trust a government to implement
• 1:21:46
  these sort of changes? I mean, Donald Trump has already basically decided what press
• 1:21:49
  are allowed to report on him and what who aren't allowed in the room. So of course, there are
• 1:21:53
  serious issues with how this is implemented and I understand the criticism. But I think right now,
• 1:21:58
  like looking at the Australian media, it's really tough to look at the current landscape. I think
• 1:22:02
  there are massive problems with the mergers and acquisitions that are allowed. I think it also
• 1:22:04
  needs to be like who can buy and and how the concentration media works. There's a lot of regulation
• 1:22:09
  brought in in 2017 around mergers. There's problematic that's made out media is so concentrated now.
• 1:22:15
  But there are so many different kinds of recommendations that could be made that don't just
• 1:22:20
  rely on the government enforcing like criminal penalties or civil penalties on media.
• 1:22:24
  Like it can be set up in a different way that just offers just slightly more accountability
• 1:22:28
  structure than we currently have in place, which is virtually nothing.
• 1:22:31
  I mean, do you mean that you could have like an agreement of voluntary agreement between media
• 1:22:35
  companies? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's how like complaints about fact checks and things like
• 1:22:40
  that work, right? I mean, you know, someone says I actually, you know, they got this wrong.
• 1:22:44
  And so then they bury a correction on page eight or something like that.
• 1:22:47
  Again, and I understand that they're going to get the same level of attention that the original
• 1:22:51
  mispost got. You know, I understand that. I mean, I'm wary. I think you have more faith than I do
• 1:22:57
  in the ability of clever people to figure shit out. Like there have been enough moments like,
• 1:23:05
  for example, during the pandemic, when like I practically was torn limb from limb at the end
• 1:23:10
  of 2021 for writing an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald saying that maybe we're going a little far
• 1:23:16
  like locking people in their families up for two weeks in prisons because they happen to be
• 1:23:21
  on the same flight as someone who later tested positive for COVID at this point. Like what's
• 1:23:25
  the balance of human rights? But at that point, it was like, well, you killed, you're asking
• 1:23:30
  for grandma to be killed. I mean, you want to just let it rip. This is like almost two years into
• 1:23:34
  the pandemic at which we were still doing that kind of crazy stuff. I think this is a really,
• 1:23:38
  you know, you can absolutely imagine a public health panel, you know, a panel of media truth in media
• 1:23:45
  being like, especially at the end of a long string of bullshit about I have a mecton and vaccine
• 1:23:49
  hysteria being like, you can't be publishing this kind of stuff that's going to get people hurt.
• 1:23:55
  Yeah, and I think that what you're saying is a really good criticism of what I'm saying. I
• 1:23:59
  completely agree with you. I think that in the moment, in the heat of what we know is like the
• 1:24:02
  inflammatory topic of a certain time period, there can be decisions made and there can be heightened
• 1:24:07
  stress and dysregulation within a population. The results and things like that. So I completely
• 1:24:11
  agree. I think that that would shift my opinion entirely on what I'm saying even. But I also think
• 1:24:16
  that like when I'm looking at Australian media landscape and the majority of opinions that are
• 1:24:20
  published, so many of them, I genuinely do believe I like equivalent to hate speech. Like what
• 1:24:24
  the Australian publishes every day as an op-ed is like deeply concerning to me that that is like
• 1:24:29
  the bullshit they're publishing every second of every day. What is it? Oh my god. I think Janet
• 1:24:33
  O'Brexten has written at least 35 hit pieces on Brittany Heaton's character. Like as a singular
• 1:24:38
  columnist, I feel like she's in devoted half of her personality to hating young women.
• 1:24:43
  And it's like there is just her whole purpose in life seems to be to defend accused perpetrators
• 1:24:51
  and to frame victim survivors as liars. And it's unfounded, you know, if we're talking about
• 1:24:57
  fair trials, if we're talking about fair process, that's not it either, you know. And so I also see
• 1:25:02
  that there are pieces that are published, you know, in far left spaces, which are saying like I'm
• 1:25:06
  a conservative and I'm part of the far right for saying things like I think Kamala Harris is
• 1:25:11
  preferable to Donald Trump. You know, like there is, and this doesn't mean either of those people,
• 1:25:16
  I think should be, I'm not saying there should be like severe penalties for the individual,
• 1:25:20
  but I think when we're talking about the way that pieces are published and the way that sections
• 1:25:25
  of media are regulated, like there is a responsibility to offer a diversity of opinion.
• 1:25:30
  Yeah, I mean, when you were talking about the fact that you sort of wish that there weren't lots
• 1:25:36
  of things for you to talk about because things weren't so bad. Do you wonder if we're too down on
• 1:25:41
  ourselves and the world? Like that, that the environment of what you're saying in those
• 1:25:46
  op-eds and what we're all seeing on social media and the, all of the things we've been talking
• 1:25:51
  about in this conversation can conspire to arrange us somewhat and that you look at a whole bunch
• 1:25:58
  of metrics. The world is currently moderately peaceful, not quite as peaceful as it was a decade or
• 1:26:05
  two ago because of Ukraine and Gaza, but pretty good over the course of the centuries. People
• 1:26:11
  are wealthier than they've been. Our longevity is better. You know, a billion people in China have
• 1:26:17
  been lifted out of malnutrition over the past few decades. You know, diseases are at all time
• 1:26:24
  lows. There are obviously issues. We can't afford to buy houses in Australia. There's
• 1:26:31
  we're going to have to do something about the climate chaos. There's much less casual racism
• 1:26:38
  and sexism than there was just 10 years ago, let alone 50 years ago, pick up a newspaper from
• 1:26:42
  back then and the, you know, the ideas just seem completely retrograde even among the left.
• 1:26:48
  And yet we're walking around with this anxious knot in our guts about how terrible everything is.
• 1:26:57
  Yeah, no, I think that's why there are kind moments. In the last couple of years, like I think
• 1:27:02
  about like the Matilda's during the FIFA World Cup. Like that was one of the nicest moments
• 1:27:06
  in Australia and recent years. Like there was a month there where everyone was like, where does
• 1:27:11
  together? And it was like going to the pub and seeing an old man, like the full government name
• 1:27:15
  of like a queer woman of color player on an Australian team is amazing. Where I go, there's not
• 1:27:20
  a problem in the world. Like that is just lovely, unifying, beautiful. You know, there's also moments
• 1:27:25
  where we saw the US election, we're seeing what's happening overseas. Like the geopolitical climate
• 1:27:29
  right now, people have caused for being upset, distressed, tense, you know, a range of awful emotions.
• 1:27:36
  But they were upset and tense before Donald Trump won a second time.
• 1:27:40
  Yeah. And I mean, we didn't vote in that election. You know, I think that one of the best moments
• 1:27:46
  for me too was our election feeling that we rejected that style of politics in our country.
• 1:27:51
  And I think that there are moments where I go, no, it's going to be okay. But I do, I do think
• 1:27:57
  when your phones now show us the suffering around the world that is happening,
• 1:28:04
  there is obviously such valid cause for distress at all times.
• 1:28:09
  Yeah. I mean, I would say that it's a psychological phenomenon rather than like an ontological one.
• 1:28:13
  It's not a, it's not a thing that's out there that we're responding to in an impartial objective
• 1:28:19
  way. It's our psychological need to get inflamed by things. And there is not, I mean, name for me
• 1:28:25
  the moment and in history and the place where you would not have had valid reasons for being
• 1:28:32
  alarmed and anxious about the state of the planet. If you had a super computer in your pocket
• 1:28:38
  that was showing you all of the worst things going on everywhere. Completely. I mean, I just,
• 1:28:42
  I just think like there are a lot of reasons to feel really privileged and happy in the state of
• 1:28:48
  the world that we live in in Australia. Like I do constantly feel that. And I am a very happy
• 1:28:52
  person actually despite the work that I do. But I, I don't want to limit anyone else's ability to
• 1:28:58
  feel upset or feel distressed because I understand why that's such an inherent part of our lives
• 1:29:02
  right now. I mean, I'm not saying that we should care less in ways that are constructive,
• 1:29:08
  but that we should pick our battles and be actually useful rather than thinking that there's like
• 1:29:14
  an Erzatz version of usefulness, which is us walking around worrying about everything and then
• 1:29:19
  showing everybody how worried we are and how outraged we are on social media, which strikes me as
• 1:29:25
  not an optimal way to run a life. No, but I think that when there is genuine worry that that's why
• 1:29:30
  my view is always said people like instead of feeling like you're being accused of others of not
• 1:29:35
  doing enough, just work out the thing that you can do today. Like what is within your power to change?
• 1:29:40
  Like is it making a donation? Is it talking about on social media? Is it about having a conversation
• 1:29:44
  at the dinner table? Like there are so many ways where it's like here is the method in which I'm
• 1:29:49
  choosing to feel like I can contribute to a situation and not feeling like I'm constantly bad for
• 1:29:58
  sort of like not should I be worrying at all times? Yes. I think it's about like what are the ways
• 1:30:02
  in which I can help and what are those managed ways in the immediate future in a month and a year?
• 1:30:06
  I'm always about the practical like what can you do to feel like you're making a difference?
• 1:30:10
  And what can you make? What is the best way to make a difference in your own life?
• 1:30:14
  Yeah, yeah. Rather than seeing like you must feel upset at all times like having joy,
• 1:30:19
  experiencing joy, you can't keep going and keep advocating if you are like unable to experience
• 1:30:24
  that joy still and actually sit and recognize the privileges and the joy we have in our own lives.
• 1:30:29
  Yeah, I mean, and there's also a way of framing problems and things that are wrong in a way that
• 1:30:33
  is empowering rather than victimizing. Like I do think there's a problem culturally that I don't
• 1:30:38
  quite know how to fix but it's partly technological which is that we are encouraged to think about
• 1:30:43
  things in a in quite a powerless victimized rage-filled way instead of a way that has agency and
• 1:30:51
  a certain amount of grace. Yeah, you know about spheres of focus. Have you ever had the psychological
• 1:30:59
  idea that there are like you imagine a bunch of concentric rings and in the bullseye there's
• 1:31:05
  the things that you can control, that you literally can control. You can control where you are
• 1:31:10
  right now, whether you walk out of this interview, what you eat, where you go and those kinds of
• 1:31:14
  things. And then there's a growing set of spheres like Australian politics, you have some role in
• 1:31:19
  the global politics less so, you know, climate perhaps even less so and so on and so forth.
• 1:31:25
  And a person's psychological health is closely correlated to which ring they spend most of their
• 1:31:32
  time in mentally. That's really fascinating. So if you spend a lot of time in spheres that you
• 1:31:38
  are out of control, you'll lead quite an anxious and stressed out life. But we can also understand
• 1:31:45
  why people spend so much time in the ring that they can't control because we define so much of our
• 1:31:50
  own impact and our own purpose in the ring that we can't control. Like I can I resonate with that
• 1:31:57
  so much. And I think it's I don't think that's a fault. I think that that's I think that that's
• 1:32:02
  passion and compassion. But I think that also recognizing that there's only so much you can do in
• 1:32:07
  that ring. But trying your best to pursuing it and keeping engaged and informed. But understanding
• 1:32:13
  that actually like community impact and what you what is within your control and driving to do
• 1:32:18
  better. Like that is ultimately like the my pragmatic like theory of change. I think yeah. And I mean
• 1:32:23
  spending a lot of time in the ring that you can't control is also a way to feel like you're doing
• 1:32:27
  something without actually having to go the hard yards of doing something like it's quite hard
• 1:32:32
  and annoying and boring to set up a community gun. You know, but it's great to go out and march ra ra ra
• 1:32:38
  about I mean this is one of the reasons why I'm conflicted about things like protests and
• 1:32:42
  online activism regarding guards or whatever it might be. It's easy. It's quite easy to go out and
• 1:32:49
  march with a sign. I mean, it's quite fun actually. It's much harder to make your bed and clean
• 1:32:54
  your house and you know, do all of the boring mundane shit that has to get done for the world
• 1:32:59
  to function. Well, but I think it's the outcome you want from the different action, right? Like
• 1:33:04
  a community garden is a fulfilling hobby where you meet people connect and maybe help someone's
• 1:33:08
  livelihood or give them new purpose or something or connection with another another individual.
• 1:33:13
  A protest is to reform a law or to lobby the government to make a change. And it's not to say that
• 1:33:18
  either about it's just to say that it depends what you're after. Yeah. Well, yes. I mean, that's
• 1:33:22
  a generous interpretation of what protests do. Or an naive one, but I don't think they end up
• 1:33:28
  achieving terribly much unless they're massive, but we can hold that for another day. I want to
• 1:33:32
  let you go. Do you ever worry that you are peaking too early? No, I actually don't. I've got a lot
• 1:33:41
  in me. And I think that I worry and I'm anxious and I'm like scared. I always worry about what the next
• 1:33:47
  step is because I've done a lot and I'm really proud of what I've done. And sometimes I think I
• 1:33:51
  need to step away and that it's a bit too much for now. But ultimately, like I have big goals and
• 1:33:56
  big dreams. And I think like I have the resilience to pursue them. Where do you want to be when you
• 1:34:01
  50? Probably on a holiday. Just as soon as I can achieve everything in the world,
• 1:34:10
  quite an age of 49, when I'm 50, I'll take a break. I actually never talk about this, but I
• 1:34:15
  definitely want to have kids and have a really nice long-term relationship. I think that I don't
• 1:34:19
  give myself space for that now because I'm very driven career professionally. But I think that
• 1:34:25
  when I'm 50, I would like to be a really present parent. Do you think about chunking your life into
• 1:34:30
  periods in which you can focus on that and focus on the other or are you a have it all,
• 1:34:35
  gal? There is no way as the person that will carry the child that I can decide in the next decade
• 1:34:42
  when that will possibly fit with what I want to do. So it will have to be an attempt at all at once
• 1:34:47
  and it will be a really awful attempt. I'm sure, but I'm not my best. Well, welcome to the club.
• 1:34:52
  Thanks so much for your time. Great to talk to you. Thank you.