Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Senator David Pocock on "How to Be a Senator & World-Cup Athlete"

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Senator David Pocock on "How to Be a Senator & World-Cup Athlete" · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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G'day humans, welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and taking dangerous stances
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on intractable issues like political corruption and multinational mining companies and gambling
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giants and culture war issues like same-text marriage is sort of the job of today's guest.
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The Australian senator, David Pockock, he was born in Zimbabwe in 1988, moved to Australia as a
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teenager, became a rugby champion. He was a professional rugby player played for the Australian
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national rugby team and then in 2021 was drafted into politics and became a senator, an independent
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senator, no less. Not from either of the major political parties, he has strong reformist beliefs,
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is generally socially progressive and I wanted to pick his brain about what makes him tick and
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where he sees democracy going in the 21st century. I hope you enjoy as much as I did this chat
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with the one and only senator, David Pockock. Have you been in the state? Are you a hunter at all?
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I grew up in Zimbabwe, so I actually grew up doing a lot of hunting and then didn't for
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15 years and then, but a few mates who do a bit of deer hunting and a massive problem around
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camera and sort of up into the snowy mountains and so do a bit of that. We saw on a road trip
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through the snowies with my kids during the school holidays and in addition to a lot of deer,
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a lot of brumbies just wandering around all over the place, horses, wild horses.
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Yeah, well, there were, I mean, the last sort of aerial count, I think, estimate 20,000 or so in
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just in Cosiasco. Wow. And I know now they're starting to call them, but it's a beat. It's having
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a big impact on those sort of alpine, they're pretty fragile ecosystems. Yeah. Hunting in Zimbabwe
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in the 1980s is a kid. What does that mean? What does that look like? In the 90s. Sorry, I don't
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want to age you. No, good. Well, it was just sort of the odd meat, animal,
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an e-tune in parlor or a kudu or something. Pretty informal. Like, I look at the guns and ammo
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and everything that people use these days. I don't know. I can't even remember a sort of target
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shooting. You kind of, you have one shot if you could do something, you're like, yeah, you're ready.
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So yeah, it was a lot of time with my dad out on the bush.
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So you guys lived in the bush, you weren't in a big city? Yeah, we were farming. We were probably
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half an hour outside of a little town called Query, right in the middle of Zimbabwe, the Midlands.
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Spent the first 14 years marked that and then we moved to Australia in 2002. Yeah. What made
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your parents leave? Was it the unrest? Yeah, our farm was taken in the land redistribution.
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Yeah. Were you aware of what was going on? I mean, was that traumatising?
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It was pretty hairy. It was a really hard thing as a kid because I grew up, I was born in 88,
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so eight years after Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980. That was all I really,
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really knew and loved Zimbabwe. It was home, never imagined leaving. Then around 2000, things
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started to decline economically. The government sort of lost a referendum to change the
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constitution and it quickly started going downhill and Robert McGarby essentially sort of
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kept going to white farmers and said, well, these, yeah, 5,000 white farmers are the reason for all
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these other other issues in the country. This was, McGarby was the corrupt dictator of the
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country trying to shift blame for his own president for a very long time. And you know, it's one
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year kind of seeing the president of the country that you have loved and I thought was home now
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kind of saying there's no place for you here and things got pretty violent. One of our
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so father and son who we knew really well went to school with they were ambushed at night. The
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father was killed. The son, I think he had like, I don't know, 15, 20 bullets in him but
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but somehow survived and then a neighbour was killed enough that my parents kind of just said, well,
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yeah, why would we hang around here and thankfully mum had had a teaching degree so we got into
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Australia on skilled, skilled visas and sort of left for suitcases and arrived here and all I knew
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about Australia was really, you know, sticky bush kangaroo from the, you should show it on the
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Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and flying doctors and we're watching cricket and the wallabies.
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Yeah. And was there a period, was there a period that you were aware of after your parents had
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applied for a residency in Australia where you guys were just kind of hanging on and McGarby the
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leader was whipping up more and more antipathy and antagonism towards you and like was it visible
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and could you feel it? Yeah, I mean, there were rights in town and huge petrol queues,
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shortages of bread, all sorts of stuff. So it was a pretty hairy time in the country and my
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family parents had applied and it took, I think it took about 18 months so we ended up just sort of
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leaving the farm and went down to a little coastal town to Africa for eight months and just enrolled
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in a local school there. That makes sense. Watching the homeland basically employed in a ball of
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flames while you're in South Africa. Yeah and I guess because of all that arrived in Australia
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with I don't know a bit of guilt that my family was able to leave but most of my school friends
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didn't but also just so grateful for the opportunity. Remember just landing in Brisbane and being
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like right, I'm going to make the most of absolutely everything, every opportunity I get here.
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And how was school here? It was such a, it was the first little while, it was such a big shock.
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I mean, when I left Zimbabwe we were still getting cane to school like it was pretty,
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pretty strict, very sort of old school. And is that just paint the picture for us in Zimbabwe?
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I assume it's an old white school, like is it segregated like that? It's like an old, is it?
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No, not at all. It's totally black and white kids. I mean that all ended in 1980 and so
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the school system was very much. I think that was one of the really jarring things as a
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as a kid with the way that Zimbabwe went downhill so, so quickly, is that you didn't really have a
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real grip on the history. And I think obviously learn at school about the first and second
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chimarangas, the freedom struggles, but you obviously don't know the ins and outs as a 10-year-old,
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12-year-old. Right. And the ins and outs broadly are what, that it used to be segregated in colonial
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then it was independent and supposedly egalitarian, but in the process of that it spiraled out of
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control and became a quasi civil war quasi authoritarian shithole. Yeah, there was a first,
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there was a first sort of struggle in the late 1890s when the British South African
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company sort of moved up into what is now Zimbabwe and then they essentially set up a
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Southern, Southern Rhodesia and then Rhodesia, they declared independence and after that there was,
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I think from like the mid 60s to 1979, there was a, a Bush war, like a war between
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two, Zipra, Zanla and then the Rhodesian forces for essentially four independence and that ended
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in in 1980 with the first democratic election and the election of Robert Mugabe's
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government and then he was pressed for a very long very very long time. I guess there was a huge
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amount of hope that things would, there would be this kind of this new dawn of democracy for all
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and and you know all the promises that came with that but it hasn't, hasn't painted.
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And do you talk to your parents about what it was like in the 80s like were they full of optimism
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and did they think this is great we're just going to become like you know a modern western liberal
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country now. There was a huge amount of optimism. My parents were born in I think 62 and 63
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and so their entire lives growing up were through war and that obviously shapes you in a certain way
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so I think there was a huge amount of relief in in 1980 when that was over although there were some
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things through the early 80s that that continued and a lot of people just cracked on and got on
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got on with it and both sides of my family were we're farming and so it was
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yeah it was um it was a tough time for a lot of lotters and barbians and unfortunately you know
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things are still pretty tough pretty tough over there and I've I've loved sort of going back
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up so a little bit of family there but I've been involved in a bunch of things from some
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community development work to conservation there so many good people so many good people and just
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people who are so optimistic and are just constantly having to make make a plan to deal with
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hyperinflation or shortages of all sorts of things that you know you and I just
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take for granted what it was not totally I mean you don't give me start I'll be banging on for a
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week about how you know how how grateful we should be for the preciousness of the kind of institutions
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that have that are able to sustain this equilibrium of you know kind of prosperity and democracy
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because it's not easy when you see other countries try it you know you realise how hard it is
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actually to get all the pieces of the jigsaw just right so that civilization kind of you know
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continues and flourishes it's very easy doesn't take much to knock it down
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no and we have we have such an incredible system here you know having an independent
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electoral body that really everyone almost everyone respects yeah I mean are you making that
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contrast to the United States well yeah you see the you know issues over there with
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Jerry mandering and I guess the way that you can sort of play around with with things in the
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electoral system yeah and even just the lack of faith that they have that the elections are
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being counted correctly and stuff or that you know remember well you probably don't remember the
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Gore Bush election in 2000 but like when there was the whole Florida recount thing there were
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these things called hanging chads and dimpled dockets and things because every single state has a
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different way of voting so some states you'd have to like punch a little pin through a hole in a
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piece of paper using an antiquated old machine and if you didn't punch it the whole way through but
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it had a dimple in it but it hadn't punctured then like do you count that as a vote and everything
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it was these huge ends up going to Supreme Court just Supreme Court ends up deciding it
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and I was just watching it going like so much simpler having an Australian electoral commission
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which is a national consistent body that runs the elections in all the states handles it all
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exactly the same way you know so you don't get like Georgia squabbling with California squabbling
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with Florida about what the best way to run an election is they just do it nationally
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yeah no it's a it's a great thing and I think we need to keep keep improving it I think we're
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obviously facing some big some big challenges and I think that's that's one of the the important
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things is that if we continue to sort of one ensure that we're in you know keeping it independent
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and well respected but also giving the Australian electoral commission more tools to actually deal
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with I don't know some of the big challenges we're seeing around you know generative AI and you know
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a whole bunch of things that just in the past haven't even been on the radar yeah like misinformation
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about word of vote and how to vote and who to vote yeah let's get to that but I just I just want
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to close the loop on you moving to Brisbane Ghana School you know having to insinuate yourself
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into a new culture how what did people make of you what did you schoolmates make of you did you get
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bullied or teased or like what was it like um obviously got teed you know kids can be pretty cruel
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got teased uh about my accent took took me a while to get used to I remember that one of the
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things that really stood out in the first term we had this teacher and people had a nickname
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for him that they called to his face and he was fine with it like it was a great relationship
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and it in my you know 14-year-old mind I just could not get my head around calling someone
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in a teacher someone with authority by by a nickname and at at the time I thought oh this is
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just really disrespectful you know and he's Aussie Aussie Aussie is a so disrespectful and then
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I guess you get to realize and actually appreciate some of the more casual nature of Australians
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in the way the way we do things what was his nickname uh aggers aggers was that an abbreviation of his
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last name was I just an abbreviation so nothing and we were already athletically brilliant
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I mean growing up I'd loved playing rugby and it was what I wanted to do I'd grown up um you know
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the Zimbabwe rugby team wasn't the greatest so supported the spring box and wanted to play
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for when it's played for the spring box that's what I wanted to do that's a team for people out
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yeah it's a perfect team um but you know soon as I knew we were moving to Australia became a
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oh big wallowies fan and that's what I that's what I wanted to do and I guess in moving to
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Australia sport was basically how I dealt with how I dealt with things I just threw myself
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into sport and became pretty obsessed yeah I've got two younger brothers and my poor my poor
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family I think they copped the the brunt of someone who was just totally obsessed about
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training and diet and right and all those sorts of things but I think it was it was a coping mechanism
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and it yeah it it served it served me well and so if I'd asked you when you were 14 or 15 and you
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just arrived in Australia if I'd said to you in 2024 you're going to be talking to this guy
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on a podcast but as soon as you got past saying what is a podcast then uh if I said what would
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what would what do you reckon you'll be doing in your life what would you've said
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May in 2021 I would have said to you you're totally dreaming if you think I'm going to go into
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politics it just wasn't wasn't something that I had ever contemplated becoming a politician
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I was very interested in politics I think growing up in a country like Zimbabwe it totally
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shapes the way you think it overshadows every conversation I remember when we moved to Australia
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we're moving to Australia my mum saying to my dad like oh I wonder what Australians talk about
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you know if they don't talk about politics because that's so interesting yeah yeah I'll have
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you heard this what about this um and so it always been when we talk at the answer is married at first
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sight we talk about married at first sight and the bachelor and other reality shows great
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wholesome TV shows and but so would you have thought would you have said that you want to be a wallaby
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when you're in your teens or would you have thought oh I'll probably try but I'll probably fail
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and I'll probably end up being an accountant or like how ambitious were you no that's what I wanted
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to do I was pretty I'm pretty introverted by nature I'll probably wouldn't have proclaimed that
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I was going to play for the wallabies but privately uh I wanted to be the best regular claim in the
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world and you know I sort of wanted to had decided I was going to do anything and everything I
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I could to do that so it was pretty driven to try and get there and represent this new country
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that had given me an opportunity do you remember the um the opening game for Australia of the 2015
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rugby world cup yeah I think we played Fiji in Wales at um it's a great stadium they're actually
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millennium stadium yeah that was um I think you scored a couple of tries yeah the 2015
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world cup was a lot a lot of fun um in 20 in 2011 it was in New Zealand and we'd gone over there
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and we lost to New Zealand in the semi-final and so I think 2015 the team hadn't been in great
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form leading up to it but I think everyone had that sort of confidence and self belief and
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we sort of made it made it happen we were all enjoying ourselves and enjoying each other's company
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and it ended up losing in the losing in the final but it was um which I don't know it still
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haunts me but why that's professional sport why take me take me to that moment
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well you just you're you're so close but yeah you're you're not you're not world champions and
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that's you've put in so much so much work to get there and then yeah it just doesn't you don't
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do enough on the day to to make it happen and it was at the all blacks who won who yeah
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and so he's only one yeah and could you just feel it slip do you remember the game
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you could you just feel it slipping away uh yeah it ebbed and flowed a bit I remember at one
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point genuinely thinking like we're gonna we're gonna do this um and you know you've visualized
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and seen it seen it happen uh and then yeah I think was the last sort of 10 minutes or so they um
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um uh score to try and I actually haven't watched the game back really is that unusual for you
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oh not really I mean you analyzing stuff so much I think by the end of the tournament the last game
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you often don't like this is the one that I get to not watch yeah yeah the last one uh that's
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interesting I asked about 2015 because I think I think that it's probably where I you first came
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across my radar so I'm just wondering if that was a moment but I mean as as a you know as a non-ruby
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fanboy I wonder if that was a moment at which you were like okay I'm kind of like a sort of a big
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fucking deal now that's not the way I thought about it but I guess the wallabies did I think did
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a lot better than everyone had expected and I mean we're seeing during the Olympics just how
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much Australians love seeing Australian teams do well it's so good isn't it have you been how much
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how much how much of the Olympics have you been able to watch are you in his parliament mission what
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do you it's so great I'm I love it I loved I just love the sheer rain among you I love
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I don't Olympics tragic on like um amateur sports like I really don't I'm just a purist on like
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faster higher stronger you know I don't think we should be I don't think there should be tennis at
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the Olympics and stuff like that but just going around and like looking at all the skateboarding in
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the you know the speed climbing I was watching the other night like there you know it's like a
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it's a four second it's a four to five second event where a couple of guys are just like
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shitting up a wall as fast as they can in either 4.9 or 5.2 seconds while yeah regardless
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of the event you watch it and you just humans can do incredible things yeah it is quite something
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to see the level of skill and athleticism you know watching I mean Nina Kennedy with that with
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the pole vault just I mean that is so high yes yes send it up pole so high that's one thing we
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know about them yeah yeah I know be terrifying at there and you were you were extremely
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fixated as you said on like diet and working out like you were you were a pumped guy right like
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you were not this was not just I'm gonna do the minimum for my body that's necessary for me to
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be a good rugby player you are a peak performance dude yeah I think I early on in my some of my
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late teens and early on my career sort of to my detriment probably too much and I think part of that
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was because yes the way I rationalize it was that while this is good for my rugby and my performance
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you know being stronger leaner but really what was happened what was really going on was that this
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was the way that I could control things because you know life had felt so out of control yeah
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control my training I could control my diet and became so fixated on them and yeah it took me
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took me I guess a number of years to try and shift that relationship with my body and with
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with food and trying to come to a bit more of a healthier I guess perspective and get a bit of
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a bit a little bit more balance into things whilst also you know being pretty
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stringent and dedicated about it were you always socially progressive
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I grew up in a pretty conservative Christian family in a I'd say a conservative Christian culture
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um and so I'd probably say no I'd probably say no I mean I I guess it had always
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been interested in injustice and people's struggle against it in my late um teens early 20s
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was just totally obsessed with first you know Desmond Desmond Tutu who was one of the
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Archbishop who did a huge amount fighting apartheid and then you kind of look at non-violent
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civil disobedience and direct action and then that takes you to Martin Luther King Jr which
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then takes you to Gandhi and was pretty obsessively reading sort of all
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sorts of stuff on those on those characters and found it really really interesting and compelling
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looking looking at how that had I guess taken place and really shifted things that a lot of people
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thought wouldn't wouldn't shift for a very long time you probably in hindsight came to Australia
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with a more finely tuned racial radar than most white Australians born in the 80s had I'm guessing
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just being being brought up in Zimbabwe and then living in South Africa did you find Australia
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to be racist or different in any way my experience of it was I had a funny accent
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it didn't take me long to to lose that and then you kind of as far as most people concerned
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Australian right I mean racist towards you I just mean did you find white Australians casually
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racist towards black people in Aboriginal is more than you were used to yeah so I had people
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would say well like where your parents from you yeah you don't sound I contrast that to some of
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my blacks and white women friends who also moved to Australia almost at the exact same age
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and they just had a totally different experience of Australia and talking to them it's yeah it's
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eye opening and very very confronting we still have a long way to go and I think it's it's hard
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um it's hard to argue that we we don't on it on on any level there is a huge amount of
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of I think when it comes to First Nations people of truth telling to be to be done around the
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the sort of resistance to colonisation and the ongoing sort of struggle of First Nations people
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but then I think more generally of we on the one hand we're an incredibly successful multicultural
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society but that doesn't mean that we're not without I guess issues and things that we need to be
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working on having conversations around and I think there's still is that that prejudice amongst
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um yeah sections of society and it's I think it's something that we need to be open to to
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discussing and actually hearing people's people's perspectives on do you still speak with your
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blacks and barbiean friends who are a do I still live here yeah there's there's uh I mean Zimbabwean
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is everywhere that was I see one of the things I love about playing professional rugby is you see
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you know traveling to um a bunch of different places to play no matter where you are there's Zimbabweans
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so specifically the ones who you moved to who moved here at the same time because I'm
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interested in in what they say now about racism and we have the how the the country has evolved
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if it all in the past well I'm sure it has of course it has in the past 30 years
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I think it's definitely there's definitely more awareness about it um I think one of the things that
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really um talking to to um one of my mates here one of the things that really stung him was sort of the
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the way that his classmates kind of said well we're you know we're just joking like this is it's
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kind of this casual racism I like don't take it yeah don't take it so we're only we're only
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looking with you um and I think that's really one of the things that we need to address but I
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be interested about whether that happens today like I would imagine that in the 90s you could you
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know a black Australian you know blacks and barbiean in Australia could probably be in an office job
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and there would be casual racist jokes thrown around that they'd be expected to laugh at or they could
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walk through even progressive neighborhoods in the inner west of Sydney or in Canberra or Melbourne
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and be at risk of someone hurling a racial epithet at them from across the road and even if they
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did take it to a police station and complain about it the cops would roll their eyes and go you
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want to be kidding mate I mean you know I take a joke today and I think that it happened
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today I don't think you you couldn't be in an office environment and have someone make a racial
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remark I mean it would immediately go to HR or people in culture or whatever they call it
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and that person would be sanctioned and I don't think you'd be walking through you know progressive
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neighborhoods in the big cities and be routinely subject to racial catcalls and if you if you were
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and if you did take it to the police the cops take it seriously surely yeah well you're you're
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you're probably right I don't think that's I think things have definitely shifted a
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the the huge amount but I certainly still hear from people in the so multicultural community
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people in different backgrounds about some of the ways which you know it may just be if you've
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got a non-angloser name just not getting not getting interviews for jobs I know that's something
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it's been being raised with me so yeah I don't think it's as overt but that's probably for
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you know people who don't look like me I've got a unique use of me having a moon tan a lot of
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the time of very very white so yeah it just toggles I mean I'm a bit the same it just toggles
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directly between white and bright red after you've been in the sun so those are the two settings yeah
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no I mean I think it's important for us to be able to talk about it as well you know I mean there
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are there's a hilarious level of casual racism between some of my friends of color as well you
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know the the the Koreans shitting on the Indians and the pugs down he's shitting on the
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Japanese and the Chinese shitting on everybody so it's still of course it still exists
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stereotypes and prejudice but it probably isn't as unidirectional as it was in the 1980s and 90s
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but I mean the your your kind of passion for social justice is not just racially coded I mean
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I'm also talking about is it true I read that you didn't get formally married until marriage
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was marriage equality was achieved until gays could get married as well is it right it is yeah
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what we my wife and I had a marriage ceremony and a pretty good party afterwards in 2010 but didn't
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sign any government paperwork and I mean our view was that we didn't want to be part of something
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that some of our friends if they'd wanted to you know marry the love of their life couldn't
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couldn't do at the time and I mean that was a stance that I remember hearing being taken in like
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2015 2016 when like marriage equality was a real buzz buzzy thing and it felt like it was about
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to happen and it had just happened in other countries but 2010's pretty early like 2010 was
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people were not talking about gay marriage much in 2010 um well I think it was an issue for
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for some people um it was obviously an issue for the people who wanted to get gay marriage
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I remember at the time no one really cared you know we just decided well this is just something
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that yeah personally we don't want to be part of this thing if yeah all of our friends um people
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we we love and we look at there and yeah I guess at the time I was um I was living with someone
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in a in a share house and she had a she was in a same-sex relationship and I looked at their
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relationship and my relationship with Emma and said well there's only much different come
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difference uh in this I don't understand why that that love is somehow less than what I feel for
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Emma and yeah obviously not everyone wants to get married but if you do I thought well this is
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something that should be available to right it's fair enough to think that it's another thing to
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actually do something like not get married I mean have a marriage ceremony but not sign the paperwork
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like most people don't do that you have this you have something in you that goes from here's
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an idea about social justice to oh I'm I'm gonna do x in response yeah I think it was just our
33:23
little personal stand against a system that didn't want to recognize something that I didn't
33:34
agree with um and I mean at the time I think don't really
33:38
care like as you said it was only like 2015-16 that I think a few I started to get asked by
33:45
journalists like oh you know you haven't you haven't got married because of this um back in 2010
33:51
it wasn't uh it wasn't from what I remember really uh a thing but yeah I guess it was just uh a
33:57
personal decision if you if you believe something then right kind of put your money where your
34:03
mouth is that's not a logic that most people live by um it's not just I don't want to
34:10
cherry pick the same sex marriage thing like you you you brought a a sign language interpreter to
34:16
your maiden speech in parliament right and had to jump through hoops in order to make that happen
34:20
because you objected to the fact that you know people who could only communicate using sign language
34:25
weren't included and you know you got arrested for protesting of the expansion of a coal mine
34:30
like this is this is a persistent patent persistent theme um I don't know where it comes from I guess
34:41
that's just how I often think about things is that if you really believe something then you need
34:51
you need to do something about it and and and actually make a make a stand um you know to just
35:01
I mean what was it Desmond Tuti is to often say you know if you remain neutral in situations of
35:08
injustice you essentially just choosing the side of the the oppressive because you're doing
35:12
nothing about it um and so and I guess in in little ways we can all make our own little
35:18
um stands and you know as a white heterosexual male in Australia in 2010 like it didn't really
35:30
cost me much at all um yeah some of some of um some of our family we're not we're not happy at all
35:37
about it uh but yeah that's in the scheme of things you can you can you can you can do without
35:46
I mean the Desmond Tuti thing is interest is an interesting line to raise because
35:52
remaining neutral might be mistaken right when there's a great moral question like you know
35:59
should one should people should one whole cohort of people be shatter upon just because they
36:04
they they have different skin color to the ruling clique but on a lot of issues right now I feel
36:10
like people are being encouraged to not remain neutral and to display extremely loud expressions
36:18
of um identification with noble causes on social media but they don't do shit they don't do
36:26
they don't not get married they don't go and get arrested at a coal mine they don't you know
36:31
bring in the sign language interpreter they don't do anything and yet they think that they're
36:37
the heirs to Desmond Tuti because they're not remaining neutral they're posting every bloody day
36:41
about either Gaza or Israel or you know whatever the issue of the moment is that's going to get them
36:48
the largest number of likes and allow them to virtue signal to their tribe so I'm not sure
36:53
it's I'm not sure what this question is but it strikes me that there's a difference between
36:57
like stridently proclaiming your support for some moral position and quietly doing the work
37:05
hmm yeah well I think it's in in in our actions yeah we can we can say a lot but how you actually
37:15
ending up and what are you doing and I I guess social media is just this whole
37:20
uh I mean at times it's just a total bin fire right like people are people are saying stuff
37:24
on there that they would just never say in a conversation with with people and I think one of
37:33
one of the things we we often lose I think on there is the fact that yes there are differences
37:41
of opinion but there's also this whole bunch of stuff that we agree on and as a I guess as an
37:49
independent senator I very much see my job as representing people across the ACT and we only have
37:57
two senators uh that you know the states have have have twelve because we're a territory we have
38:02
two and I'm very aware that um so I'm there's a roundabout way of talking about this but I'm very
38:07
aware that not everyone voted for me there's actually a whole bunch of people who hate my guts
38:11
they don't think I'm doing a very good job but I represent them and so I actually um my team and
38:16
I we got about way to actually ensure that we're hearing this broad range of views and
38:23
yeah regardless of how polarizing issues are you often find that there is this big group of
38:33
people in the middle eight cent of people who are saying yeah we get this is this is complicated
38:38
it's complex uh but we want you to find a way forward a sensible way forward you open social
38:46
media and it's the five percent on either end who are just slinging might at each other um and
38:53
if you think well that's what most people think I don't think that's I don't think that's true
38:58
you know whether that's on industrial relations legislation or you know pick a pick a topic
39:04
that people have strong strong views on and yeah people constantly just talking about you know
39:11
this polarization polarization and I think one of the things behind that is that um
39:20
we're yeah these algorithms seem to just work on on outrage and if that's what they work on
39:27
then that's what you see you're seeing the the the extremes being amplified and yeah some of
39:34
sure some of its can be funny and entertaining but yeah I concerned about how like what does that
39:44
actually mean over the over the decades um you start to play this play this out are we building a
39:51
more sort of coherent more tolerant society that can actually have really really tough conversations
39:58
and I think that's one of the things that I certainly enjoy about your podcast is actually being
40:04
up for some of the tough conversations and the nuance and disagreeing and I think it's becoming
40:10
rarer and rarer in public um in public discourse yeah I mean and when you say that your job as an
40:17
independent senator is to represent everybody not just the members of a particular the voters of
40:21
a particular party of course that is also supposed to be the job of a labor senator or a liberal
40:26
senator or a green senator or a one nation senator they are supposed to be representing the entire
40:30
state or territory they're not just supposed to be representing the people who voted for them
40:34
although it can sometimes feel that way um and so where where are you on how we should deal with
40:39
social media then because you know obviously I bang on about this until the cows come home I don't
40:44
think we should be allowing our conversations to be you know to have for there to be a thumb on
40:49
the scale of algorithms whose job it is to essentially hold up a mirror and reinforce people's
40:55
cognitive biases and you know endorse the things they already think and demonise things
41:00
they don't think and I think it's healthy for algorithms to be managing information flow because
41:04
so it's two talks against two divisive um and yet I'm sort of you know I talked to so many experts
41:11
on about this but from a policy level um do we need to ban like social media for for kids at
41:20
least for under 16s do we need regular regulation about it what do you do
41:28
yeah the senator senator this huge area my focus really has been on on young people how do we
41:40
how do we protect young people from some of these clearly there there's a bunch of of harms
41:47
sure you can argue that there are some some upsides but for young people who
41:53
are still coming to grips with the world we know from neuroscientists their brains are still
42:00
developing to give them the equivalent of you know digital cocaine and expect that they can
42:11
just somehow manage manage that um yeah I'm concerned that we we're setting up young people
42:20
for failure it's a I think it's a really hard thing to try and work out well how do you
42:25
how do you do that obviously people like Jonathan Hight and and others have put a lot of
42:32
you know time and effort into this space and from what I hear from people that it really resonates
42:37
you talk to parents and that they recognize it's an issue they want to preserve young people's
42:42
childhoods and I I'm certainly very grateful that I've finished high school basically before social
42:54
media really got got going and became a became a thing because I just yeah I can't imagine also
43:02
having to to deal with with that sort of online world as a young person and I think yeah we've
43:07
got to acknowledge that for a lot of young people today it's a it's a pretty pretty tough thing to
43:13
try and try and navigate did you ever use it much even as an adult yeah I mean I've been on I've
43:19
been on social media for a long time and I guess as an athlete you see it as a way to actually
43:26
communicate with with people and but I mean when you're a so yeah it's a bit different when you're
43:31
a celebrity but I mean do are you actually going into your mentions and you're looking at people
43:35
replying to you I mean I'm pretty fortunate now I've got someone on my team who's thinking
43:43
more when you're a rugby star but yeah I mean now you have the systems in place to manage
43:47
communication flows but like when you're a rugby star are you opening up your Twitter
43:54
after a World Cup game and looking at what people are saying about you tried not to
44:01
try to sort of just post and not get but yeah you inevitably do every now and then and
44:10
you realize people are people are pretty brutal on there yeah and yeah we've heard a bunch of
44:16
athletes talk about it right the impact that it it can and does does have on on people and
44:25
and yeah we're we're just so you know wired I think for a whole bunch of good reasons to really take
44:32
on board danger and negative feedback as opposed to positive stuff so we kind of just dwell on
44:40
the dwell on the negative and so I think over the years it's been real I don't know really tried to
44:46
put more more things in place around I guess trying to focus on the upside I've met some amazing
44:55
people through through social media who I'm now friends with and and staying contact with but
45:03
let's not let that blind us from the significant challenges and and and downside of some of these
45:09
platforms it also feels absolutely awful when you're a public figure and a mob comes after you
45:14
do you have that running in the back of your head like when you when do you think about doing
45:18
a conversation like this for example is there something worrying in the back of your head going
45:23
I don't say something that's just going to end up causing three days of a shit storm on
45:30
Twitter I mean for sure yeah we I think coming back to the the sort of difficult conversations and
45:43
having some nuance I think we live in an age where you can say something as part of a broader
45:49
conversation that clip can get taken out of context and you're cancelled on the basis that you
45:54
said one thing despite you had all these caveats and backstory and and explanations around that
46:01
and so yeah it's definitely a it's definitely a consideration you can be pretty it can be pretty
46:10
actually I mean that is that specific phenomenon that you put your finger on there is I think
46:15
something that we have to culturally kind of stand up to stop and you're making me think that I
46:20
should just make it a requirement now when I go on other people's podcasts to have the right to
46:24
have a veto approval over social media clips because you're right but that that specific trick
46:31
of talking to somebody for like two hours or three hours or whatever it is and then a producer
46:38
parachuting in and like splicing and dicing to make it look maximally clicky and to feed the
46:43
algorithm is a large a significant part of the problem of like mob is coming for you to happen to
46:49
me on a number of occasions I don't do it to other people I'm not going to you know I don't hire
46:54
producers who are going to go in and try to find them the most potentially salacious yeah obviously
46:59
they try to find something that's interesting about you but they're not going to try to find
47:02
something they can take out of context to make it seem like you were saying something that you weren't
47:06
saying that yeah that you could definitely do a better job of just culturally creating a taboo
47:11
around that and I mean everyone loves a bit of recreational outrage so you see that clip and
47:16
is like what he said you know just said what yeah no one's coming back and trawling through
47:21
scrubbing through to your one hour thirty eight minutes to you yeah that's right yeah that's
47:27
right yeah and sometimes we'll even post a clip of like me saying something inner podcast which
47:34
is just in my pocket in my show it'll be like me saying something in my show that I put up there
47:40
inviting people to listen to the episode and a whole bunch of people will start getting stuck into
47:45
me because of something that I said in that clip when the whole point of the post is to get people
47:49
to go and listen to the original thing because like I'm saying it's too long to say here you know
47:54
you need to we need to talk about this for 30 40 50 60 minutes in order for it to make any sense
48:00
and they're like that 22nd clip did not do it justice and I'm like yeah that's the point
48:05
they're going listen to the fucking podcast if you want ever got me it's right there there's a
48:10
fucking link to it just click you idiot um yes anyway don't get me started on people's attention
48:18
spans and social media at the moment um gambling's the other thing here where you know you talk about
48:25
the harm to to young people and we've got we've found ourselves in this scenario now we're in
48:30
addition to social media apps there's just a deluge of like opportunities to wager on sports in
48:37
Australia I don't know what it's like in other countries for for my international listeners but
48:41
here like every ad break has an ad for a sports betting app and they're among the most like
48:48
downloaded apps in the country and is it true I think I heard you say that where the biggest
48:54
betters where the biggest gamblers in the world per capita straight because lose is per capita in
48:59
the world the biggest lose is the other way of saying the same thing yeah Australians lose just over
49:04
$25 billion a year and we're not a we're not a big country and yeah I think on the on the point
49:10
about the just saturation I think last year was about 260 or 280 million dollars was spent on
49:18
gambling advertising in Australia and for your international audience we worked like 25 million
49:23
people hmm really people we're not we're not a huge country that is an extraordinary did you say
49:28
we lose 25 billion dollars a year yes a thousand dollars for every man woman and child in the country
49:36
so assuming that the kids assuming that babies aren't gambling someone's doing some heavy lifting
49:43
on that number right I mean some people just be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars
49:48
in a cost of living crisis it's it's pretty extraordinary and the parliament had this
49:55
actually really really good committee report and some people who are cynical about politics might
50:04
you're right to be cynical but just hold your cynicism for a minute or two parliamentary committee
50:11
looks at this goes yep this is a huge huge problem here in Australia there's also this is
50:17
you know destroying families destroying lives um exacerbating family domestic violence even
50:23
leading to suicide we've got to do something about it and so they recommended 31 different things
50:29
that the sort of the headline thing was phasing out all gambling advertising over three years
50:35
if you want to go and have a have a punt go for it but you're not going to see ads on on TV
50:41
in recognition that we're essentially grooming a whole generation of young people to think that
50:46
all gambling's what everyone does and there was a study last year as well that showed that
50:52
three out of four young people now think that gambling is just a normal part of what you sport so
50:57
the advertising's working now that the time to get cynical we have this parliamentary report
51:03
which every party in the parliament backs in says yep big problem here the solutions
51:08
and now we're hearing that the government isn't gonna implement that they've sat on this report
51:13
for over 12 months now and now we're sort of hearing well maybe we could ban social media online
51:19
but on TV we could set some caps and we know that last time they've sort of just made a few little
51:27
jigs to the to the law it actually increased ads because they just played more ads at different
51:34
at different times when they they could so it's a big it's a big big issue and I think we're seeing
51:42
yet again sort of vested interests the power of of big industries and lobbyists on public policy
51:51
and rather than having policy that's good for you and I for Australians you think that's what
51:58
the parliament's there to make decisions for we sound like we're going to get legislation that
52:05
actually is pretty good for the for the gambling companies and is not in line with what
52:10
the whole parliament said that they wanted through this report right and that's what's the cynical
52:16
version of why that is presumably because gambling companies have massive amounts of money
52:21
and access and get to have lots of meetings with the relevant minister and potentially fund
52:27
campaigns yeah I think it's there's a lot of factors at play one is just purely the the power of
52:37
the gambling industry this is an enormous industry at 25 if you're 25 billion dollar industry
52:44
you have a lot of money to spend on clearly advertising but then also lobbying but it's also very
52:51
connected to they have to advertise with someone and so the TV stations are saying well we get a
52:56
lot of money from gambling advertising and we're actually doing it tough at the moment so what about
53:00
us and then sports as well are saying well we get a lot of gambling sponsorship and so who's
53:08
going to fill those those sponsorships if we can't get gambling and there's a couple of sports
53:16
in Australia that have actually now made gambling not just sponsors but they're actually part of
53:22
their business model where they're getting kickbacks on bets on on games and for me as a as a
53:29
former professional athlete that's it's really worrying it kind of goes it goes against all the
53:34
values that I think we want sports to be to be about you know this should be about
53:42
challenging yourself physically and mentally and learning to be part of a team learning to take
53:46
on feedback learning to win learning to lose not just another product to be able to
53:52
vlog off things like you know gambling apps or you know products that we know are harmful
54:00
so I think there's a whole bunch of factors at play but I would just love to see or courage from
54:07
from the government to stand up to them and say yep we we know this is a tough transition we're
54:12
going to work with you to um as happened with with tobacco we heard all this transition but unlike
54:20
tobacco it's a transition back to the status quo ante that existed like three seconds ago like
54:27
it did they didn't use to have all these apps and gambling ads I mean 10 years ago
54:33
they weren't there like we can just revert to that it's not like you're trying to undo something
54:38
that's been fundamental to the fabric of Australian cultures from time immemorial like specifically
54:43
gambling through and like maybe like I suppose is there a way of delineating or differentiating
54:50
between what is actually problem gambling and what is just having a bit of fun because like there
54:54
is a long tradition of just having a bit of a flutter playing too up at the pub on Anzac Day
54:59
going on the races and dropping some money on it but then there's this institutionalized
55:04
system that also prays on people on gambling addicts addiction so I mean for people who aren't
55:09
in Australia they may not be aware that we have I think the highest rate of what by far of
55:14
poker machines in the world right almost every bar and pub has a poker machine room and it's partly
55:22
it partly supports itself profit-wise by inviting essentially sad gambling addicts to go and sit
55:28
in that room at all hours of day and night and feed those machines which then are good for treasury
55:34
because they they they they're taxed and they're good for local sports supposedly because then
55:40
the clubs have more money to invest and give discounted Sunday roasts to old people who come
55:46
and eat in the pubs and clubs and all of that is done kind of on the back of praying off people
55:52
who are addicted to this one um vice like that that surely has to be kept separate from
56:00
normal everyday gambling that I don't personally have a problem with.
56:03
Well and I think this is this is part of the problem with this debate is that if you start to say okay
56:09
well gambling ads are so prolific you cannot escape them and I hear from parents all the time
56:16
who are just so sick of turning on anything we're trying to watch sport with your your kids and
56:21
you're just being bombarded with with gambling ads to be able to say what actually that's that's
56:27
not okay that is normalizing what can be a harmful product yes you can gamble and have fun
56:33
and do it in a responsible way but we don't want to tolerate this as a as a society young people
56:39
should not be seeing ads and the only way to ensure that happens is to is to to ban them all to say
56:45
you just cannot advertise this thing. People say well you're the nanny state and you're just you
56:51
know just trying to take away our fun but no one's saying that you can't go and gamble and I think
56:57
yeah that's what needs to be part of this debate and the one of the things that the Murphy
57:02
review did was recommend a whole range of measures to actually help problem gamblers get the
57:09
support that they need while ensuring that people who do want to go down to the local
57:14
TAB and place some place of bets can still do that one of my concerns those I think our notion
57:24
of what gambling is is still very much you know someone in there with his mates you know
57:33
hollering at the little TV in the corner of the pub placing bets having a great time
57:40
the reality is is that problem gamblers are lying in bed by themselves at night looking at their
57:46
phone or you know different screens placing bets on all sorts of things all over the the place
57:52
and it's pretty isolating I think it's pretty pretty pretty pretty lonely it's you're not getting
57:58
that sort of social side of things that I think you know people do love I mean you know
58:04
Anzac Day playing two up has to be one of the one of the best things you get the the best ways
58:10
you can gamble so much fun but let's not conflate that with a lot of what is what is
58:18
happening and is becoming very problematic how do you get into politics what happened in 2021
58:24
because earlier you said you would even as recently as 2021 you wouldn't have believed that
58:28
you would be a senator there was a community group in Canberra that had been frustrated with
58:36
politics and decided that they wanted to try and get an independent into the senate for
58:44
your international audience over the last of 10 15 years there've been a number of independent
58:53
members of parliament who've been elected ahead of the sort of two major parties that we we have here
59:00
and they've time and time again brought issues forward that I think really resonate with most
59:06
Australians and a lot of people have been looking at them saying well hang on why can't we have
59:10
someone like that representing us we want to we want to deal with the with the real issues we want
59:14
to see some some actual movement on these things that are are being neglected by the by the
59:22
major parties and so this group was holding all sorts of consultations and you know kitchen
59:28
table conversations speaking to people in Canberra about one the issues but two who they thought
59:33
might be able to represent them and they got in touch and said hey we're doing this thing and
59:37
your your name keeps coming up would you consider putting your hand up and initially I said
59:44
I love what you're doing it's great I support it but no thank you this is not this is not for me
59:49
and I was actually involved in a conservation project in Zimbabwe at the time and had been had been
59:55
over there for six months or so the more I thought about it and they kept they were pretty persistent
1:00:02
they kept kept in touch kept hassling me the more I thought about it I'd I've been frustrated
1:00:08
with politics I've been I've been saying that it's clearly interested in it and you know I love
1:00:14
living here in Canberra and I figured again like at some point if you're saying that you're
1:00:19
frustrated with it then you've got a you've got to say okay well let's see if we can do something
1:00:24
about that and so pretty last minute like decided in December that I was going to run launched
1:00:31
a campaign in January and the election was in May so it was pretty crazy well and it was a
1:00:38
liberal seat that Senate seat in other words it belonged to the Senate right party at the time
1:00:44
who you defeated yeah so for the last 50 years it's been one Labor one Liberal Senator here in the
1:00:52
ACT and I was elected ahead of the Liberal candidate who you know wasn't that well well liked and
1:01:01
I think it was sort of this combination of factors where you had the previous government who were
1:01:05
a bit on the nose when it came to to climate and you know transparency in a whole whole range of
1:01:11
things so we've had I've had Simon Holmes a court on this show and people should go back and listen
1:01:16
to that episode if they want to understand more about the sort of wave of independence in in Australia
1:01:22
but the criticism from conservatives is yeah this looks like a great grassroots upswelling of
1:01:28
kind of community support but actually it's millions and millions of dollars being poured in by
1:01:33
some very wealthy individuals who have just the same hobby horses as many of the Australian people
1:01:40
climate integrity and government gender equality whatever it might be and it's sort of a loose
1:01:47
coalition a kind of a party in its own right of carefully selected celebrities and business people
1:01:55
to knock off conservatives is that what happened well I mean that's what those are some of the
1:02:04
allegations yes I was selected by this community group sort of went through their process
1:02:10
there was the community group get money from well they had no money when they well they had like
1:02:15
some some little donations when they when they endorsed me as we started to do to hear the rest
1:02:21
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