Latest / The You Project / #1854 Politics & Purpose - Zoe Daniel

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#1854 Politics & Purpose - Zoe Daniel · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get a team.
0:01
Speaker 2: Welcome to another installment of the Bloody You Project. Tiffany
0:04
Speaker 2: and Cooker's over there. I'll briefly say a loo to
0:06
Speaker 2: her because she's got self esteem issues and she's an
0:09
Speaker 2: only child.
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Speaker 3: Hi, thank you, Harps. I'm just keeping a float with
0:13
Speaker 3: the self esteem thanks to.
0:14
Speaker 1: That, emotional issues being kept in check. You all right,
0:18
Speaker 1: just just thank you. Therapy still with doctor Bill or.
0:21
Speaker 3: Have cooked tomorrow? Actually, oh god.
0:25
Speaker 2: Doctor Bill. Osie's beach ause to you. Yeah, I know, Zohey,
0:30
Speaker 2: have you ever thought about therapy? Maybe that's we can't
0:33
Speaker 2: talk about that overtly, but you probably need therapy on
0:36
Speaker 2: a constant base basis with your life.
0:40
Speaker 4: You know, when I was a phone correspondent, the ABC
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Speaker 4: used to offer counseling after traumatic assignments, but I gave
0:47
Speaker 4: up having it because often when I would speak to
0:51
Speaker 4: the counselor, they would spend the whole session going, oh
0:54
Speaker 4: my god, that's so.
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Speaker 3: Terrible, Oh my god, Oh I don't know how you
0:57
Speaker 3: dealt with that. Oh that's shocking.
0:58
Speaker 4: And me, in the end, I felt like I was
1:00
Speaker 4: counseling them, so it wasn't overly productive.
1:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure that it's great when the therapist
1:06
Speaker 2: is coming out more traumatized than the patient.
1:08
Speaker 1: But well done, that's a good effort by you.
1:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, And not to denigrate the efforts of the counselors,
1:15
Speaker 4: who I'm sure were giving it their best effort, but
1:18
Speaker 4: some of the stories were a little bit extreme.
1:22
Speaker 2: Did that in all seriousness without being specific? Like, is
1:25
Speaker 2: that stuff you still live with?
1:27
Speaker 1: Do you had?
1:28
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no when you talk about stress and
1:30
Speaker 2: trauma and going through things like that, there's no three
1:34
Speaker 2: step plan. How did you navigate and manage that?
1:38
Speaker 3: I think it's still with me for sure.
1:40
Speaker 4: I Mean when I was a journalist, I covered lots
1:43
Speaker 4: of immense trauma in climate disaster situations, particularly with a
1:48
Speaker 4: big hurrican or typhoon, bushfires, you know, covered mass shootings,
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Speaker 4: of plane crashes, terrorist attacks.
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Speaker 3: So this stuff's really and it stays with you.
2:02
Speaker 4: And look, I think in many ways it's made me
2:04
Speaker 4: a more empathetic person actually, And you know, everything that
2:08
Speaker 4: happens in your life.
2:08
Speaker 3: Becomes part of you.
2:09
Speaker 4: But there's no doubt that I don't like being in
2:12
Speaker 4: big crowds, for example, and confined spaces because I've covered
2:16
Speaker 4: mass shootings and I have that sort of in the
2:18
Speaker 4: back of my mind. So you can't just shake these
2:21
Speaker 4: experiences off. In many ways, being a front correspondence kind
2:24
Speaker 4: of like being a paramedic or you know, an emergency
2:28
Speaker 4: responder because often you're there very early in the piece
2:31
Speaker 4: and what your witness is stuff that other people don't see.
2:36
Speaker 2: Were you compelled to be a journal like did you
2:41
Speaker 2: fall into that? Is that something you wanted to do,
2:43
Speaker 2: Were you fascinated with it? How did you end up there?
2:47
Speaker 4: So when I was fifteen and I wanted to be
2:49
Speaker 4: a horse vet because I grew up riding horses.
2:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, as you do.
2:53
Speaker 4: My science teacher said, look, you'll get through vet science,
2:57
Speaker 4: but you're a really good writer, and maybe you should
2:59
Speaker 4: just play to your strengths. And so from the time
3:02
Speaker 4: I was fifteen, I decided I was going to be
3:04
Speaker 4: a journalist. And then I went and did an arts
3:07
Speaker 4: journalism degree, and through that I decided I wanted to
3:09
Speaker 4: be a foreign correspondent, and I just set about building
3:13
Speaker 4: the skills that you need because you need to be
3:15
Speaker 4: a really good multitasker, and especially in the modern media world,
3:20
Speaker 4: you need to be able to do everything for yourself.
3:22
Speaker 3: You need to be really self reliant.
3:24
Speaker 4: So I just said about ticking those boxes so that
3:27
Speaker 4: I could test myself internationally.
3:31
Speaker 1: I feel like.
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Speaker 2: Being a politician, being a journal is it's about many things,
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Speaker 2: but maybe one of the commons denominators is how do
3:39
Speaker 2: I build trust and respect and rapport and connection with
3:42
Speaker 2: a group of people that are going to be paying
3:45
Speaker 2: attention to me and my stuff?
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Speaker 1: Is that true?
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Speaker 2: Like that is one of the one of the skills
3:52
Speaker 2: that you need is to be able to share what
3:54
Speaker 2: can be uncomfortable or complicated messages in a way that's resonant.
4:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's sort of the outward facing part of it.
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Speaker 4: But I think actually the main thread between the two
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Speaker 4: things is listening and also listening without judgment. So you know,
4:14
Speaker 4: when I was covering Donald Trump, for example, during the
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Speaker 4: first Trump administration, I covered the twenty sixteen election and
4:21
Speaker 4: then lived in Washington and covered the White House, I
4:24
Speaker 4: spent a lot of time talking to Trump supporters trying
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Speaker 4: to understand why they were supporting him despite his obvious
4:33
Speaker 4: flaws around treatment of women and a whole range of stuff.
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Speaker 4: And you know, you just learn to have conversations differently,
4:41
Speaker 4: and I think that's really useful in politics.
4:44
Speaker 3: As well.
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Speaker 2: That's a really interesting Stephen Covey wrote a book which
4:49
Speaker 2: you've probably heard of or maybe read one hundred years
4:51
Speaker 2: ago called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, And
4:54
Speaker 2: I think chapter four maybe or one or is you know,
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Speaker 2: seek first to understand, then to be understood.
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Speaker 1: And I feel like that's really how do you do that?
5:05
Speaker 1: And how do you.
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Speaker 2: Because we're all emotional, right, doesn't you know unless you're
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Speaker 2: a complete sociopath, But how do you try to tone
5:15
Speaker 2: down the emotion and your subjective kind of feelings and
5:19
Speaker 2: just not let that come through the objective reporting or messaging.
5:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're going to have your own personal reaction
5:27
Speaker 3: to things, I think, and you've got to accept that.
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Speaker 4: Your background, your upbringing, your life experiences, your current circumstance
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Speaker 4: may influence the way that you interpret something. But then
5:40
Speaker 4: to be able to pause that and try and literally
5:42
Speaker 4: put yourself in someone else's shoes, or often describe it
5:45
Speaker 4: as looking through the other side of the prism to think, well,
5:49
Speaker 4: how would this affect a person that I'm talking to?
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Speaker 4: And I think that when you're talking about policy and legislation,
5:57
Speaker 4: that's really useful because you can go, well, what are
5:59
Speaker 4: the unintended consequences of this, or what are the things
6:03
Speaker 4: in this.
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Speaker 3: That might not occur to me.
6:05
Speaker 4: And then you sort of go digging around for real
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Speaker 4: world impact of whatever it is that you're trying to
6:12
Speaker 4: develop in terms of structural changes that affect people's lives.
6:17
Speaker 4: I mean, that's what we do in the parliament. We
6:19
Speaker 4: make laws, we make policies that affect people, and they
6:23
Speaker 4: have to just keep bringing it back to that all
6:25
Speaker 4: the time.
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Speaker 2: I'm really interested in I said to you before we
6:29
Speaker 2: started rolling, I'm not a particularly political person, so we're
6:33
Speaker 2: not going to have a political conversation, which may or
6:35
Speaker 2: may not be good to good news to you. But
6:38
Speaker 2: my PhD is around a thing called metaperception, which is,
6:44
Speaker 2: in simple terms, your ability to understand the Zoe experience
6:47
Speaker 2: for others you know, or my experience to understand what's
6:50
Speaker 2: it like being around Crag or listening to gregor being
6:53
Speaker 2: in an audience or you know whatever, And to also,
6:58
Speaker 2: I guess, understand how other people think and see things,
7:00
Speaker 2: which is theory of mind. This is a weird question,
7:05
Speaker 2: but it's interesting for me. What do you think? How
7:08
Speaker 2: do you think people? This is not loaded by the
7:11
Speaker 2: way I ask a lot of people this, how do
7:12
Speaker 2: you think people see you? Because on the one hand,
7:15
Speaker 2: we go some people will go, I don't give a
7:18
Speaker 2: fuck how people see me. But at the same time,
7:21
Speaker 2: it matters how people see us, Right, how do you
7:25
Speaker 2: do How do you feel about that?
7:28
Speaker 3: Yeah?
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Speaker 4: So I guess the way I speak to it is
7:33
Speaker 4: around sort of my aspiration of who I try to be.
7:37
Speaker 4: You know, no one is ever perfect, right, but if
7:41
Speaker 4: the starting point is treat people as you want to
7:45
Speaker 4: be treated, be respectful, be empathetic, but also be direct,
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Speaker 4: be honest. You know that it's never going to be
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Speaker 4: perfect for all people. And I think that's one of
7:58
Speaker 4: the problems with politics if that, you know, our political
8:01
Speaker 4: leaders just don't want to say, well, you know, some
8:04
Speaker 4: people are not going to be happy with this. It's
8:05
Speaker 4: never going to be one hundred percent perfect. There's always
8:08
Speaker 4: going to be sort of winners and losers. So to
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Speaker 4: just try and be that good faith actor and also
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Speaker 4: call stuff out like be real yes, and you know again,
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Speaker 4: be the listener, like.
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Speaker 3: Do that really.
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Speaker 4: Direct community work here, talk to people, listen to people,
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Speaker 4: try and hear people out, even if the experience of
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Speaker 4: life is totally different to mine. I mean that's sort
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Speaker 4: of the whole point to try to then come up
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Speaker 4: with solutions which are broadly beneficial to most people. I
8:48
Speaker 4: think that's sort of the best that you can hope for.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, because I guess like what I find interesting is
8:54
Speaker 2: and even for me, like we've got we go into
8:56
Speaker 2: ninety countries, we don't have I mean, we're in terms
8:59
Speaker 2: of Australian kind of personal development kind of show. We
9:04
Speaker 2: have a lot of listeners, which is good. But you know,
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Speaker 2: I'm always like, I genuinely want to be the most
9:12
Speaker 2: you know, without being inappropriate, the most authentic, real version
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Speaker 2: of me that I can be for people, right, not
9:18
Speaker 2: because that's good pr or not because you know, but
9:21
Speaker 2: just that that's how I am, and that sometimes that
9:24
Speaker 2: works well and sometimes it's a fucking nightmare, right, But
9:27
Speaker 2: that's okay. But at the same time, I still want
9:30
Speaker 2: people to like me and like my brand and come
9:33
Speaker 2: to my workshops and listen to my show. So there's
9:35
Speaker 2: this kind of like there's this challenge where you want
9:38
Speaker 2: to be real and authentic and you don't want to
9:40
Speaker 2: be a kind of a manufactured facsimile or a persona.
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Speaker 1: But at the same time you've got a brand and
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Speaker 1: an image to maintain.
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Speaker 2: How do you kind of be authentic because you've got
9:51
Speaker 2: people who as as which you should, you know, who
9:57
Speaker 2: help you create a brand and pr and all that.
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Speaker 2: Of course, how in the middle of all of that
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Speaker 2: do you not just become a PERSONA.
10:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's funny because when I first started doing this,
10:10
Speaker 4: well after I was selected as to be a candidate
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Speaker 4: a community organization back in twenty twenty one, and I
10:15
Speaker 4: had my ad team and they described me as the product.
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Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not a bloody product, you know,
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Speaker 3: like I'm a person.
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Speaker 4: But you know, of course, advertising people are trying to
10:28
Speaker 4: sell something, so in this case, they're trying to sell me.
10:32
Speaker 4: The thing is, though, that I'm still in control of that,
10:34
Speaker 4: like I still have my red lines, and I'm like, well,
10:38
Speaker 4: you have to portray me as I really am, like
10:42
Speaker 4: you know, as I do think of myself or try
10:45
Speaker 4: to aspire to be the honest broker, the person of integrity,
10:48
Speaker 4: the one who's direct he'll call stuff out, who thinks independently,
10:52
Speaker 4: you know, all those things. So it's sort of different
10:55
Speaker 4: to you know, selling a can of coke but not
10:59
Speaker 4: telling people it's sugar. It's actually trying to be authentic
11:04
Speaker 4: with that branding, like trying.
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Speaker 3: To sort of draw out the pieces of me that.
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Speaker 4: Me and my team think people need to see in
11:14
Speaker 4: order to understand what I can do for them in
11:17
Speaker 4: the Parliament that's different to what they've previously had.
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Speaker 1: What about being in the media and journalism broadly helped
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Speaker 1: you in politics?
11:30
Speaker 4: Was?
11:30
Speaker 2: I guess obviously the fact that you're talking all the
11:33
Speaker 2: time and you're a good communicator. Is there anything else
11:35
Speaker 2: that kind of was a nice preparation for your four
11:40
Speaker 2: A MS politics more than a four A, but you're
11:44
Speaker 2: entrein into the world of politics.
11:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:46
Speaker 4: So I think one thing is that with all the
11:50
Speaker 4: stuff that I've done, like covering Trump and politics around
11:54
Speaker 4: the world and Wall Street and refugee camps and terrorism
11:57
Speaker 4: and plane crashes and climate disasters and all those sorts
12:01
Speaker 4: of things, that a lot of that stuff provides really
12:04
Speaker 4: good context for the kinds of decisions that I.
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Speaker 3: Have to make or the understanding of the world that
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Speaker 3: I need.
12:11
Speaker 4: But I also think that, you know, getting back to
12:14
Speaker 4: this who are you kind of peace, the mental toughness
12:20
Speaker 4: of being a foreign correspondent, you know, I mean, I've
12:23
Speaker 4: had to keep myself safe and my team safe in
12:28
Speaker 4: all sorts of really hairy situations.
12:30
Speaker 3: I've had to be a problem solver.
12:32
Speaker 4: I've had to be you know, sort of tenacious and nimble.
12:38
Speaker 4: And also as a female journal you know, you get
12:42
Speaker 4: a lot of flat from people, and that's very similar
12:47
Speaker 4: as an MP, not only for female lamps, but I
12:50
Speaker 4: think it's you know, higher for female MPs. So that
12:55
Speaker 4: degree of understanding that if you're in the public eye,
12:59
Speaker 4: you know you're going to get sprayed all the time,
13:02
Speaker 4: and a lot of people won't do it for that reason,
13:04
Speaker 4: to be fair, and I totally hear that.
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Speaker 3: But you know, so I didn't go into it blindly.
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Speaker 4: Obviously, I knew what to some degree what that was like,
13:13
Speaker 4: and I knew what that would be like. And also
13:16
Speaker 4: getting back to sort of having conversations with people who
13:19
Speaker 4: don't necessarily agree.
13:21
Speaker 3: With me or pissed off with me for some reason. Yeah,
13:24
Speaker 3: then I'm up for that.
13:26
Speaker 4: You know, I'm up for people to tell me that
13:28
Speaker 4: they're not happy with me. It's not comfortable, but I'm
13:31
Speaker 4: up for hearing that.
13:33
Speaker 2: Wow, And I mean it's inevitable, it's unavoidable. I mean,
13:36
Speaker 2: I have you know, we have a really loyal following,
13:41
Speaker 2: but I get at least one or two emails a
13:43
Speaker 2: day from someone going you're a fuck.
13:45
Speaker 1: With or whatever.
13:46
Speaker 4: Right.
13:46
Speaker 2: I had a bloke who sent me an email that
13:47
Speaker 2: said he wanted to put me in a plane, fly
13:49
Speaker 2: me over an active volcano and drop me in it.
13:52
Speaker 2: I'm like, dear Brian, thanks for your feedback. You know,
13:56
Speaker 2: really that seems extreme, Brian.
13:59
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, I.
14:02
Speaker 2: Find you know, as from the outside looking in, I
14:05
Speaker 2: find politics really interesting from a human behavior point of
14:09
Speaker 2: view and from a psychology point of view and a
14:11
Speaker 2: sociology point of view. And sometimes when people are talking
14:15
Speaker 2: about political this or political that, or this candidate or
14:18
Speaker 2: that candidate, or this person or that person, and I
14:21
Speaker 2: feel like the reason that they don't like that person
14:24
Speaker 2: is purely emotional. It's like they don't like how they look.
14:29
Speaker 2: I'm like, what what or that? What about his wow?
14:34
Speaker 2: What about his fucking annoying voice? I'm like, well, that's
14:37
Speaker 2: a good reason not to vote for him, I mean,
14:39
Speaker 2: or to vote or it just seems like it's got
14:43
Speaker 2: not a lot to do sometimes with any kind of
14:47
Speaker 2: awareness or understanding policies or yeah, is that a hard
14:51
Speaker 2: thing to contend with? When you know that people are
14:54
Speaker 2: forming hard opinions of you based on let's be honest,
14:58
Speaker 2: fuck all.
15:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, it can be frustrating. There's also this kind of oh,
15:07
Speaker 4: what would you know, missy that kind of thing, and
15:09
Speaker 4: it's like, well, I used I was a foreign correspondent
15:13
Speaker 4: for fifteen years, you know, so what have you been
15:16
Speaker 4: up to over that time?
15:19
Speaker 3: That kind of thing.
15:20
Speaker 4: And you know, look, while I say I'm up for
15:22
Speaker 4: the conversation, I mean I'm not up for abuse.
15:24
Speaker 3: I think there's there are lines, and you know, a
15:27
Speaker 3: lot of.
15:28
Speaker 4: Those lines get crossed, particularly in the digital world, but
15:31
Speaker 4: increasingly on the street, where people feel, you know, quite
15:34
Speaker 4: enable to scream at me and swear at me for
15:38
Speaker 4: no reason that has any particular foundation. But I think
15:42
Speaker 4: that you have to kind of just be able to
15:46
Speaker 4: let that go to some degree. And also I think
15:50
Speaker 4: there's some level of de escalating and having those conversations
15:53
Speaker 4: with people to say, well, what's your actual issue here?
15:57
Speaker 4: Like what do you what are you say angry with me?
16:00
Speaker 4: You know, and if you can at least sort of
16:02
Speaker 4: draw that thread out, often there's something else entirely that's
16:08
Speaker 4: going on in that person's life that means that they're
16:10
Speaker 4: generally furious with everyone or all politicians or or people
16:15
Speaker 4: in leadership, and you know, sometimes we can help with
16:18
Speaker 4: whatever that thing is. You know, they might be having
16:20
Speaker 4: great difficulty navigating you know, the centerlingk system or whatever
16:24
Speaker 4: it might be some government system, in which case sometimes
16:27
Speaker 4: we can support them through that process. So yeah, I
16:31
Speaker 4: think it's just, you know, while not sort of tolerating
16:34
Speaker 4: that over the top abuse, trying to draw out those
16:37
Speaker 4: conversations that can be had to try to find that
16:40
Speaker 4: common ground.
16:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
16:44
Speaker 2: When I when I did my when I went to
16:47
Speaker 2: UNI for the first time, one of my lecturers, who
16:50
Speaker 2: was a professor, he said to.
16:52
Speaker 1: Me, mister Harper, what did you say, something like.
16:57
Speaker 2: If you don't want to basically, if you don't want
16:59
Speaker 2: any piss anyone off or then say nothing, do nothing,
17:03
Speaker 2: be nothing, and stand for nothing. I'm like, that's true,
17:07
Speaker 2: because the moment that you get a bit of a
17:09
Speaker 2: tention or profile, someone who's never met you, never had
17:12
Speaker 2: a conversation with you, doesn't know you, is going to
17:15
Speaker 2: hate you or at the very.
17:17
Speaker 1: Least you know. So I guess that's part of it.
17:20
Speaker 2: And so like, obviously you're very resilient, you've been through
17:24
Speaker 2: a lot of shit in a lot of different environments
17:28
Speaker 2: and scenarios and challenges without giving away anything you don't
17:33
Speaker 2: want to give away.
17:33
Speaker 1: Or state secrets. How do you?
17:36
Speaker 2: How do you manage you? How do you manage your
17:38
Speaker 2: mental and emotional health?
17:40
Speaker 1: How do you? How do you?
17:41
Speaker 2: Because you, apart from all the other amazing shit that
17:44
Speaker 2: you are, you know, in a loving, caring way, still
17:48
Speaker 2: a human, how do you manage you?
17:51
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I think I'm pretty blessed with my family.
17:55
Speaker 4: I've got a sixteen year old daughter and an eighteen
17:58
Speaker 4: year old son.
18:00
Speaker 3: Husband is just a superstar in terms of.
18:04
Speaker 4: His very active involvement with the kids and the running
18:10
Speaker 4: of the house and you know everything, all of that
18:13
Speaker 4: sort of functional stuff in our life and has been
18:15
Speaker 4: for years because you know, as a foreign correspondent, who
18:18
Speaker 4: would get a call and I'd be on a plane
18:20
Speaker 4: next minute, not back for two weeks. And so he
18:24
Speaker 4: works full time and has his own career, but he's
18:27
Speaker 4: really involved, and so the structure of our life keeps running,
18:31
Speaker 4: you know, the routine of our life keeps running, even
18:34
Speaker 4: though I'm like a ping pong ball. And also the
18:37
Speaker 4: kids are really supportive of this work, and it was
18:41
Speaker 4: actually them, my son, particularly the older one, who said
18:45
Speaker 4: when I was asked to run, and I was pretty
18:47
Speaker 4: reluctant because politics can be pretty toxic, and he said, Mum,
18:52
Speaker 4: someone's got to do something for us, you know, someone's
18:54
Speaker 4: got in get in the room for the young people
18:57
Speaker 4: and actually space up for us. And now when I
19:00
Speaker 4: have my bad days, when I'm like, why the hell
19:03
Speaker 4: am I doing this? You know this happened, that happened,
19:06
Speaker 4: someone said X y Z and he's just like, oh,
19:08
Speaker 4: come on, mum, you know, stop being a woos. So
19:14
Speaker 4: you know they're good, like they keep it real. You
19:18
Speaker 4: try to have good family time. Like when we can
19:20
Speaker 4: have family time, we try to have it. And my
19:22
Speaker 4: other good outlet is running.
19:24
Speaker 3: I just like to go for a run.
19:26
Speaker 4: I'm in my own head when I run, I blast
19:29
Speaker 4: my you know, motivational confidence tracks in my headphones and
19:35
Speaker 4: that's kind of my escape.
19:37
Speaker 2: So so if you if you couldn't be a politician
19:40
Speaker 2: or a journal would it have been a vet?
19:44
Speaker 1: Would that would that have been the path?
19:47
Speaker 3: Yeah?
19:47
Speaker 4: I mean I really wanted to be an Olympic equestrian,
19:51
Speaker 4: but my family were not moneyed enough to support that
19:56
Speaker 4: kind of pathway.
19:57
Speaker 3: Because horses are very expensive.
20:00
Speaker 4: But that was sort of my dream, and yeah, look
20:05
Speaker 4: I do. I yearn for it a bit because you know,
20:08
Speaker 4: I grew up in Tazzy in that sort of ear
20:10
Speaker 4: and seventies and eighties where I'd be dropped off at
20:13
Speaker 4: the horses at seven o'clock in the morning Mum or
20:15
Speaker 4: dad had picked me up after dark in the freezing cold.
20:18
Speaker 4: I would have been out all day. You know, if
20:20
Speaker 4: you fall off the horse, you get back on. If
20:22
Speaker 4: the fence is broken, you fix it and build a
20:25
Speaker 4: lot of resilience. But also a love of the outdoors.
20:28
Speaker 4: And you know, we're so lucky in Australia, the open
20:33
Speaker 4: spaces that we have, and so I like when I
20:36
Speaker 4: can get out into nature, I can breathe. And if
20:41
Speaker 4: I can get out, you know, down the grad ocean
20:43
Speaker 4: road occasionally and go for a run or get down
20:46
Speaker 4: to the beach, you know that that gives.
20:48
Speaker 3: Me a lot of energy to keep moving forward.
20:51
Speaker 2: The has the also the exercise physiologist asking you here,
20:55
Speaker 2: excise scientists, I should say, how's the body holding up?
20:58
Speaker 2: At whatever you are fifty ish? Has it holding up?
21:01
Speaker 3: Oh God, it's so boring, isn't it.
21:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, like a few niggles, A few niggles like a
21:07
Speaker 4: bit of plant fascy it itis, a bit of the
21:10
Speaker 4: sore heap here and there. Took up swimming to take
21:13
Speaker 4: the pressure off from the running. Got a frozen shoulder,
21:15
Speaker 4: so then went to running.
21:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, this side of.
21:21
Speaker 4: Fifty is is annoying because you don't kind of realize
21:25
Speaker 4: that you've aged, but your body likes to tell you
21:28
Speaker 4: that you have.
21:28
Speaker 3: And that's very dull.
21:29
Speaker 2: It starts, shit starts to fall off, doesn't it, Tiff.
21:33
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know. I'm not there yet.
21:35
Speaker 2: Well, we know you're not fifty, but you're forty two
21:38
Speaker 2: and you're bearing down.
21:39
Speaker 3: And it is starting to fall off. The wheels are
21:41
Speaker 3: getting wobbly.
21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's because, as we were talking about before
21:46
Speaker 2: Zoe got on, you're riding motorbikes and you got your
21:49
Speaker 2: you got your shoulders pointing one way and your head
21:51
Speaker 2: pointing another way, and you're in severe neck extension and
21:54
Speaker 2: you're fucking up your neck. But anyway, that's why you
21:57
Speaker 2: need a naked bike, not a sports bike. You can
22:00
Speaker 2: sit more upright, but that's for another day. Zoe, back
22:02
Speaker 2: to you.
22:04
Speaker 1: Tell me about like I was talking to one of
22:08
Speaker 1: your team. I won't mention his name.
22:09
Speaker 2: Francis the other day and he was telling me that
22:13
Speaker 2: you've got I don't know if I'm meant to say
22:15
Speaker 2: this will cut.
22:16
Speaker 1: There's out like a thousand volunteers or something. Is that right?
22:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we have, and that's fine to talk about that,
22:23
Speaker 4: but they I mean, we've got more people coming on
22:25
Speaker 4: every day at the moment, which is just awesome.
22:28
Speaker 3: I love this point in the campaign.
22:31
Speaker 4: So we've had hundreds of volunteers throughout the time, and
22:35
Speaker 4: then of course, so closer it gets to the election,
22:37
Speaker 4: that team builds and yeah, when you get up to
22:40
Speaker 4: pre pole, because there's two weeks of pre pole before
22:44
Speaker 4: the election day, everyone who hasn't had.
22:46
Speaker 3: The time to volunteers like, okay, I'll do pre pole.
22:49
Speaker 4: So you just have hundreds of people jumping on board
22:52
Speaker 4: and it's really exciting.
22:54
Speaker 3: It's so fun.
22:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea. Like I caught up within
22:58
Speaker 1: the other day briefly.
22:59
Speaker 2: We've been friends for a long time and he's like, yeah,
23:01
Speaker 2: we've got to I'm like, what, Wow, that isn't so
23:08
Speaker 2: what is what does that feel like? Is that is
23:11
Speaker 2: that a good weight or not a weight at all?
23:14
Speaker 2: Or a bad weight, Like is that the level of
23:16
Speaker 2: I would feel with that level of expectation and pressure.
23:19
Speaker 2: Maybe not in a bad way, but where you know,
23:23
Speaker 2: you've got to lead these people, care for these people.
23:27
Speaker 1: I guess inspire these people a bit. What's that like
23:30
Speaker 1: to deal with?
23:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look it's there.
23:36
Speaker 4: There's that sort of thing of you know, god, you know,
23:40
Speaker 4: don't fuck it up basically, but.
23:45
Speaker 2: You should use that in your campaign. I like, if
23:48
Speaker 2: you want to be real, you want to be grounded.
23:51
Speaker 1: Do you know that you don't know this? And bout story.
23:53
Speaker 1: I've written seven books. The first book was called stop Fucking.
23:59
Speaker 2: Around right Now. Everyone told me not to call it that.
24:03
Speaker 2: This was pre all the other fuck books. This was
24:05
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, and that has that one book has
24:09
Speaker 2: outsold all my other books.
24:10
Speaker 1: So I think you should.
24:12
Speaker 2: You know, maybe you need some slogans or some posters
24:15
Speaker 2: that say, don't fuck it up, Zoe Daniel, don't fuck
24:18
Speaker 2: it up.
24:19
Speaker 1: You know you'll get the Bogan vote.
24:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I get school teachers ring in my office
24:26
Speaker 4: to tell me off.
24:26
Speaker 3: And I do like to be a good role model
24:28
Speaker 3: for the kids.
24:29
Speaker 4: So but I'll say this, the volunteers carry me I
24:34
Speaker 4: don't carry them right, Like, obviously I am there to
24:38
Speaker 4: try to energize them, and we have big events where
24:40
Speaker 4: I give like big speeches and really try to create
24:44
Speaker 4: that inspiration. But I'm inspired by what they're doing, like
24:48
Speaker 4: I take energy from them.
24:50
Speaker 3: It's a really two way thing.
24:52
Speaker 4: And at this point in the campaign, you know, three
24:54
Speaker 4: weeks out, less than three weeks out from the election,
24:57
Speaker 4: I feel great because I've got all these amazing people,
25:02
Speaker 4: you know, door knocking and doing everything that you can
25:06
Speaker 4: think of, riding bikes, walking dogs, with my T shirts
25:09
Speaker 4: on running.
25:09
Speaker 3: I had a crew of people who ran the.
25:11
Speaker 4: Entire boundary of the electric at thirty five kilometers as
25:15
Speaker 4: you know, to bring publicity to the campaign. Like they're
25:19
Speaker 4: just everywhere and they're so beautiful and positive and hopeful,
25:22
Speaker 4: and so that gives me energy.
25:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I talk to people about, you know, what
25:29
Speaker 2: they want to do, be create, you know, we talk
25:31
Speaker 2: about goals and we talk about people's what, and then
25:35
Speaker 2: then I talk to them about what's your why, Like
25:37
Speaker 2: what's your driver, what's your compelling force, what's your reason?
25:41
Speaker 2: And maybe you touched on it before with your kids,
25:44
Speaker 2: but what's like seems to me, politics does not seem attractive,
25:49
Speaker 2: not that I'm a political mind, but fuck politics, Like,
25:53
Speaker 2: what's what's your why.
25:57
Speaker 4: To provide a better future so the kids or at
26:01
Speaker 4: least the same prosperity that we've had, you know, the
26:07
Speaker 4: failings of the political system in providing good housing policy,
26:13
Speaker 4: good climate policy, good tax policy. Like there's an infinite
26:16
Speaker 4: number of things that I could reel off where the
26:19
Speaker 4: major parties just throw the ball between them and never
26:22
Speaker 4: actually make any progress on these things.
26:25
Speaker 3: And I think independence can take more.
26:28
Speaker 4: Risks because at the end of the day, if I
26:31
Speaker 4: don't get re elected on one person, right, but I
26:34
Speaker 4: can go out harder on things for the kids.
26:41
Speaker 3: And you know, I do so much work in schools.
26:44
Speaker 5: Our kids are weighed down by so much pressure around
26:50
Speaker 5: how the climate looks, the fact that they can't buy
26:53
Speaker 5: a house, that the tax burdens, student debt, gambling, advertising,
26:58
Speaker 5: a million things, and someone's got to be in there
27:02
Speaker 5: standing up for them.
27:04
Speaker 3: You know, someone has to do it.
27:06
Speaker 4: And if there's one central reason to do it, it's
27:10
Speaker 4: that to try to only gives them a voice.
27:13
Speaker 3: But really fight for.
27:17
Speaker 4: Better policy settings that actually enable them to thrive and
27:21
Speaker 4: have the life that they deserve.
27:24
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a million answers to this question, but
27:27
Speaker 2: what is something that the average punter like Tiff and
27:30
Speaker 2: I and I would think most of our listeners might
27:33
Speaker 2: not understand about being a politician, like.
27:37
Speaker 1: Where you go a bit in?
27:38
Speaker 2: Never thought of this, or you know, is there something
27:41
Speaker 2: that you go if people only knew. I'm sure there's
27:45
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's fifty things.
27:47
Speaker 4: But look, I think that there's there's two obvious things.
27:52
Speaker 4: And I'm not going to go, oh for politicians, but
27:55
Speaker 4: because everyone's like, oh politicians, they've just got those snouts
27:58
Speaker 4: in the trough and it's all really easy. I mean, basically,
28:01
Speaker 4: you go into politics, you work twenty four seven, you
28:04
Speaker 4: spend For me, I spend six months of the year
28:06
Speaker 4: away from home, five or six months away from home
28:09
Speaker 4: up in Canberra. And then when I'm out on the
28:13
Speaker 4: street sometimes people scream at.
28:15
Speaker 3: Me, and you know, it can feel hard. But the
28:20
Speaker 3: thing is that you balance that up.
28:21
Speaker 4: With the really satisfying elements of it. When you crack
28:26
Speaker 4: through on something that is important and you've been really
28:31
Speaker 4: pushing hard for it, and it makes a difference and
28:34
Speaker 4: you think that's the reason to be there, and you
28:37
Speaker 4: know the.
28:38
Speaker 3: Earlier things I said are the reason that a lot.
28:41
Speaker 4: Of people won't do it, but some people, some people
28:44
Speaker 4: have to do it. You know, you've got to get
28:46
Speaker 4: in there with the backbone and try and stand up
28:49
Speaker 4: for good decision making, because you know, you can't really
28:53
Speaker 4: complain if you're not going to participate in it. And
29:00
Speaker 4: luckily for me, with the sort of background that I have,
29:02
Speaker 4: I have the capacity to do that.
29:05
Speaker 2: So what's on the excessive to do list between now
29:09
Speaker 2: and the election? Like, is it's still as it may
29:13
Speaker 2: hem right up to the day. What's your focus for
29:16
Speaker 2: the next couple of weeks.
29:19
Speaker 3: Just being out in community as much as possible.
29:21
Speaker 4: So the big thing that I have and the other
29:24
Speaker 4: independents have, as we've already talked about, is the ground
29:28
Speaker 4: game with so many volunteers, and because I'm prosecuting the
29:33
Speaker 4: case for people to vote for me as an individual,
29:36
Speaker 4: not for a major party brand, the main thing that
29:39
Speaker 4: I have to do is get in front of as
29:41
Speaker 4: many people as possible and have the conversation before election day,
29:45
Speaker 4: and also for my volunteers to do that for me.
29:48
Speaker 4: If I can't be physically in front of one hundred
29:51
Speaker 4: plus thousand people who are voting.
29:53
Speaker 3: In this electorate.
29:54
Speaker 4: But it really is being out there having conversations, pushing
29:59
Speaker 4: the for doing politics differently, and it's all of that.
30:04
Speaker 4: It's leaf lining, it's door knocking, it's pop up officers.
30:07
Speaker 4: Got an event politics in the pub tonight, so all
30:11
Speaker 4: those sorts of things which will do right up until
30:14
Speaker 4: the last votescast.
30:16
Speaker 1: Well, it's been great talking to you.
30:18
Speaker 2: I know I could talk to you for a long time,
30:20
Speaker 2: but I know you don't have a long time because
30:21
Speaker 2: you're an incredibly busy woman. Hey, thanks for taking some
30:26
Speaker 2: time in your schedule and having probably what is for
30:29
Speaker 2: you a somewhat unconventional chat to somebody in the kind
30:33
Speaker 2: of in the media social media will call it.
30:35
Speaker 1: But hope things go great for you.
30:38
Speaker 2: And really nice to meet you, and thanks for being
30:41
Speaker 2: raw and real and honest.
30:43
Speaker 3: Thanks Craig. Thanks, thanks for having me.
30:46
Speaker 1: Enjoy the rest of your day and good luck with
30:48
Speaker 1: a campaign.
30:49
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.