# David Pocock on Life before politics, gas, gambling and taking on the major parties

An episode of [Straight Talk with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1572546872), 9 Aug 2026, 1 h 23 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/1c4759f0-81fc-4f35-85d1-b305004fc1e8/df3348ef-3163-414a-9c67-b49f00874fc2/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=573776d2-4dbd-4f2f-a825-b305004fc1ef

David Pocock is a former Wallabies captain turned independent Senator for the ACT. Born on a farm in Zimbabwe, he arrived in Australia at 14 after his family lost their land in the seizures of the late 1990s, found his feet through sport, and went on to represent the Wallabies before swapping the ruck for the red benches of the Senate. I sat down with David for an honest conversation about where he came from, how sport shaped him, and why he decided to take on the major parties as an independent. We speak about: • Growing up on a farm in Zimbabwe and the violence that forced his family out • Arriving in Australia at 14 and finding belonging through sport • The rugby road from Western Force at 17 to captaining the Wallabies • Why he ran as an independent and what shocked him most about Parliament • The widow's tax and how his team found the flaw the major parties missed • His push to rein in gambling advertising and what it is doing to young Australians • A 25% gas export tax and the question of who our natural resources really belong to • The squeeze on small business and how government procurement could back Aussie firms • Why he thinks Parliament needs a lot more long-term thinking See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: David Pocock World Straight Talk.
[0:01] Speaker 2: Thanks having How are you going good?
[0:04] Speaker 1: I'm well, there's plenty of controversy around at the moment,
[0:07] Speaker 1: and I do want to talk about the widows tax.
[0:09] Speaker 1: With maybe the widow TAXI you might have been successful
[0:11] Speaker 1: in putting enough pressure on them to sort that one out.
[0:15] Speaker 1: And before I talk about, you know, politics, et cetera.
[0:18] Speaker 1: I really, if you don't mind it just indulged him
[0:21] Speaker 1: a bit. I do want to talk about your background,
[0:24] Speaker 1: like we'll get to the Ruby bit. But I was
[0:28] Speaker 1: reading in the brief that you grew up in a
[0:30] Speaker 1: farm in Zimbabwe.
[0:32] Speaker 2: I did. I grew up in Zimbabwe in the nineties
[0:38] Speaker 2: and as looking back, had an amazing childhood born in
[0:44] Speaker 2: eighty eight post independent Zimbabwe became independent in nineteen eighty.
[0:49] Speaker 1: This is just not called Zimbabwe, knows it.
[0:51] Speaker 2: Still It was Rhodesia and then that's right, Zimbabwe for
[0:55] Speaker 2: I don't know, nine months or something, and then Zimbabwe.
[0:58] Speaker 2: And so that's what I what I knew. Grew up
[1:01] Speaker 2: on a farm, incredibly lucky looking back, you know, growing
[1:06] Speaker 2: up close to nature, a great childhood, and then the
[1:10] Speaker 2: late nineties things just went downhill very quickly, you know,
[1:14] Speaker 2: the currency started to slide, the government became unpopular and
[1:19] Speaker 2: they tried to change the constitution and they lost a referendum,
[1:23] Speaker 2: and it was kind of this trigger where they just
[1:25] Speaker 2: went into survival mode and they basically said, you know,
[1:30] Speaker 2: white people and especially white farmers the reason why Zimbabwe
[1:35] Speaker 2: is not doing well. And there was this sort of
[1:37] Speaker 2: mass land redistribution program, and so very quickly it went
[1:40] Speaker 2: from never imagining that my family would leave Zimbabwe and
[1:45] Speaker 2: feeling like this is home, this is my country, to
[1:48] Speaker 2: you know, seeing the president on TV saying, you know,
[1:51] Speaker 2: white people must leave this country. And yeah, thankfully my
[1:56] Speaker 2: mom was a qualified teacher and we got in here
[1:58] Speaker 2: on a skilled a skilled visa. But yeah, a huge,
[2:03] Speaker 2: a huge few years of age. I was fourteen when
[2:06] Speaker 2: we left, so eleven or twelve when things started to
[2:10] Speaker 2: go badly. We lost our farm. Things actually got really violent.
[2:16] Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember like people were probably being raided,
[2:19] Speaker 1: and you know, like farmers or landowners were beginning arms
[2:25] Speaker 1: and you know, like put and trying to protect themselves
[2:28] Speaker 1: from being invaded by whoever it was. I wanted to
[2:30] Speaker 1: take over the land. Is that am I imagining? That's
[2:33] Speaker 1: that's my recollection yeah.
[2:34] Speaker 2: I mean you had politicians, you had the president really
[2:37] Speaker 2: egging people on, and it just got out of hand.
[2:39] Speaker 2: We had a couple of neighbors murdered. We remember as
[2:43] Speaker 2: a you know, as a as a kid, putting my
[2:49] Speaker 2: fingers through the bullet holes in the family friends ute
[2:53] Speaker 2: where they had been ambushed and the son son and
[2:56] Speaker 2: father and son ambushed at night. The son managed to survive,
[2:59] Speaker 2: the the father was killed. And so that was the
[3:02] Speaker 2: kind of fear and anxiety, and ultimately my folks just
[3:08] Speaker 2: decided this isn't worth staying for. We want to seek
[3:13] Speaker 2: opportunity for our kids that had grown up through a
[3:16] Speaker 2: bush war, in the sort of Rhodesian bush war, and
[3:22] Speaker 2: I think they just didn't want any more of it,
[3:24] Speaker 2: and we're keen to get out. And so I arrived
[3:27] Speaker 2: here just so grateful for the opportunity after those few
[3:30] Speaker 2: years in Zimbabwe and just wanting to make the most
[3:35] Speaker 2: of every opportunity I've got in this new country that
[3:37] Speaker 2: I called home and thought had given us this sort
[3:41] Speaker 2: of ticket out.
[3:43] Speaker 1: Why did they come to Australia.
[3:46] Speaker 2: We had a family in Canada and the US that
[3:51] Speaker 2: sort of left five ten years before us. But mom
[3:55] Speaker 2: and Dad just liked it here. They thought climate was
[3:58] Speaker 2: similar culturally, some similarities, and the Wallabies were going pretty
[4:04] Speaker 2: well at the time. I think that was a big,
[4:06] Speaker 2: a big part of it.
[4:07] Speaker 1: And people who came from Zimbabwe, would you have watched
[4:11] Speaker 1: footy as a like a spring Box fan?
[4:15] Speaker 2: Would that?
[4:16] Speaker 1: Because Zimbabwe is a different country, just.
[4:19] Speaker 2: A different country. But you know, the Zimbabwe national team
[4:22] Speaker 2: wasn't competing at World Cups, right, and so basically everyone
[4:26] Speaker 2: supported the spring Box right. And I remember the ninety
[4:31] Speaker 2: nine World Cup, Stephen Larkham slotting that field goal against
[4:36] Speaker 2: South Africa for Australia to win, and going to my
[4:40] Speaker 2: bed and crying, ah, lying in bed, you know, heartbroken
[4:44] Speaker 2: that the spring Box were out of the out of
[4:46] Speaker 2: the World Cup. Never imagined that, you know, four years
[4:49] Speaker 2: later I'd be cheering on the Wallabies with their home
[4:52] Speaker 2: World Cup.
[4:54] Speaker 1: I just can't imagine a fourty year old kid, because
[4:58] Speaker 1: you know, your relatively speaking mature at that point, at fourteen,
[5:01] Speaker 1: you know, you know what you're doing, You're certainly where
[5:04] Speaker 1: what was going on around you. I presume you had
[5:08] Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, family. I just can't imagine how that
[5:14] Speaker 1: would inform you for the future. Like seeing or having
[5:20] Speaker 1: the anxiety and watching whole family stuffer the same anxiety,
[5:23] Speaker 1: friends and drama. As you mentioned for one of your neighbors,
[5:27] Speaker 1: what sort of effect do you think it had on
[5:31] Speaker 1: you when you first came to Australia. Did it make
[5:33] Speaker 1: you more diligent and want to study hard? And you
[5:37] Speaker 1: know you left everything behind? So what is the effect
[5:40] Speaker 1: on a fourteen year old kid coming into this country
[5:43] Speaker 1: of that type of what were you left which you left?
[5:46] Speaker 2: I guess it's only looking back you sort of realize
[5:52] Speaker 2: how you coped with it all, and my family all
[5:54] Speaker 2: coped in very different ways. For me, it was throwing
[5:58] Speaker 2: myself into sports and academics and just yeah, as far
[6:05] Speaker 2: back as I can remember, I wanted to play the
[6:08] Speaker 2: Rugby World Cup. I wanted to play for the spring Box,
[6:11] Speaker 2: and then after we moved to Australia, I wanted to
[6:12] Speaker 2: play for the for the Wallabies, and I just threw
[6:15] Speaker 2: myself into it. And it became, in hindsight, like a
[6:19] Speaker 2: really unhealthy obsession where things had been so out of
[6:23] Speaker 2: control and now all of a sudden, the things I
[6:26] Speaker 2: could control were my eating and my training, and that's
[6:29] Speaker 2: that's what I was going to do, and so I
[6:31] Speaker 2: became totally obsessed with training how I ate, you know,
[6:36] Speaker 2: wanting to be the very best rugby player I could
[6:39] Speaker 2: be through my late my late teens, and I guess
[6:42] Speaker 2: was fortunate enough to go to a school that played
[6:46] Speaker 2: a lot of rugby and was given those given those opportunities.
[6:50] Speaker 1: Did you get to rugby school or where do you
[6:52] Speaker 1: go to school in Brisbane? Went to a church in
[6:54] Speaker 1: brisol church in Brisbane. Yeah, so there were a rugby
[6:56] Speaker 1: in school.
[6:57] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[6:57] Speaker 1: One of the some good years is yeah. And when
[7:03] Speaker 1: did you when you arrive there? Because that would have
[7:05] Speaker 1: been a bit unusual to have a South African kid
[7:08] Speaker 1: turn up to the school and who's come from not
[7:11] Speaker 1: South but a kid to come from Africa let's call
[7:15] Speaker 1: it Zimbabwe. It would have been pretty unusual. How did
[7:17] Speaker 1: you go about making friends and sort of fitting in?
[7:20] Speaker 2: It was a huge culture shock.
[7:22] Speaker 1: I mean, you're a farmer country.
[7:25] Speaker 2: We were still getting cane at school. Really you you
[7:29] Speaker 2: stepped out of line and you were to the headmaster
[7:31] Speaker 2: for some a small beating for a few canes and
[7:35] Speaker 2: then you were back to class. Australia obviously has a
[7:39] Speaker 2: far more casual, laid back approach, and it took me
[7:43] Speaker 2: a while to sort of realize that actually this wasn't
[7:47] Speaker 2: you know, my classmates just being really disrespectful. This was
[7:50] Speaker 2: just the culture and there were actually know some benefits
[7:54] Speaker 2: to it. So it was it was that adjustment. But yeah,
[7:56] Speaker 2: you know, I was a kid with a funny accent
[7:59] Speaker 2: and we got teased a fair bit. So my brothers
[8:02] Speaker 2: and I lost it pretty quickly and by the end
[8:04] Speaker 2: of school to have mate saying where your parents from?
[8:07] Speaker 1: Like where?
[8:07] Speaker 2: Where where did they come from? But I mean really,
[8:12] Speaker 2: for me, sport was sport was the end and that
[8:15] Speaker 2: was I think, what what what saved me? Really, you
[8:19] Speaker 2: can have the funniest accent, you can, you know, look
[8:23] Speaker 2: different once you're on the sporting field. As long as
[8:26] Speaker 2: you can contribute and have a crack, you're part of
[8:29] Speaker 2: the team. And that's that's something that I'm so grateful for.
[8:32] Speaker 2: Whether it was rugby or water apollo or whatever sport
[8:36] Speaker 2: I was playing. I feel like that's the big thing
[8:38] Speaker 2: that really started to break down those barriers and I
[8:43] Speaker 2: started to feel like, yeah, this is this is home,
[8:46] Speaker 2: this is somewhere I can belong that this this starts
[8:49] Speaker 2: to feel like home. So sport was a huge part
[8:55] Speaker 2: of that for me. And you know, talking to some
[9:00] Speaker 2: blacks and Bible and friends who moved over at very
[9:02] Speaker 2: similar times, similar age, they had a very different experience,
[9:05] Speaker 2: even through sport. And so I'm very conscious that for
[9:08] Speaker 2: someone like me, the way I look aha basically white weldlend. Yeah,
[9:14] Speaker 2: that's not the experience for everyone, So I want to
[9:17] Speaker 2: make that clear. But really it was it was sport
[9:21] Speaker 2: where I started to feel like, yeah, I can I
[9:23] Speaker 2: can make something of myself here.
[9:25] Speaker 1: Does does that experience inform you in any way today
[9:32] Speaker 1: about what racial discrimination might be like, because you know,
[9:36] Speaker 1: we're going through a lot of issues at the moment.
[9:38] Speaker 1: We've got a raw commission into the anti Semitic occurrences
[9:44] Speaker 1: over the last period, and we've got problems with our
[9:47] Speaker 1: you know, perc problems at least that I'm aware of
[9:50] Speaker 1: that in relation to our Muslim community and Muslim friends,
[9:56] Speaker 1: do you get anything informed you as a result of
[10:01] Speaker 1: what you felt when you first came to this country.
[10:04] Speaker 1: Did you lean on any of that?
[10:06] Speaker 2: I mean, I think the biggest thing is comparing my experience,
[10:13] Speaker 2: my family's experience with blacks and Biblian families that we know,
[10:19] Speaker 2: very different experience, and you know, I think that really
[10:23] Speaker 2: does say a bit about where we're at. I think
[10:27] Speaker 2: in some ways you can say things are improving, but
[10:30] Speaker 2: as a country, I think we've got a lot to
[10:33] Speaker 2: do to start to judge people simply based on their
[10:36] Speaker 2: character and their contribution rather than how they look. And
[10:42] Speaker 2: you know, I think part of that is actually facing
[10:46] Speaker 2: our history as a country. You know, growing up in
[10:48] Speaker 2: Southern Africa, everyone knows that's where apartheid was a lot
[10:53] Speaker 2: of the policies used in apartheid in South Africa we're
[10:57] Speaker 2: taken from Australia. I think a lot of us, right, Yeah,
[11:00] Speaker 2: a lot of Australians wouldn't wouldn't know.
[11:02] Speaker 1: That into the white Australian policy.
[11:04] Speaker 2: Is that what you mean? Well, things like so here
[11:06] Speaker 2: in Australia, a lot of cities will have a boundary
[11:09] Speaker 2: street which is where anyone who wasn't white had to
[11:13] Speaker 2: be out of there at night.
[11:14] Speaker 1: Is that right because the one who's around the corner here.
[11:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. The South Africans took that and implemented it. So yeah,
[11:22] Speaker 2: we have that as part of our history. And I
[11:24] Speaker 2: think that's not to shame Australians today, Like you know,
[11:28] Speaker 2: none of us alive now we're responsible for that, but
[11:30] Speaker 2: that is part of our history. And I feel like
[11:33] Speaker 2: there's a lot of pushback about even talking about that,
[11:36] Speaker 2: because in a way we're maybe a little bit insecure
[11:39] Speaker 2: about who we are. But I think in acknowledging it,
[11:41] Speaker 2: it doesn't diminish us. It just says, you know, this
[11:43] Speaker 2: is something that's part of our history and we've got
[11:45] Speaker 2: to be really mindful of it and try and build
[11:48] Speaker 2: something something better together.
[11:49] Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your Ruby Union career.
[11:54] Speaker 1: If you don't mine, I know you probably think it's boring,
[11:56] Speaker 1: but it's not to me, it's not to our audience
[11:59] Speaker 1: for sure. Definitely want to talk about your political career.
[12:01] Speaker 1: But when did you first get put in a position
[12:07] Speaker 1: where you thought you might possibly get into the ranks
[12:09] Speaker 1: of playing for Australia. Did you play school boys Australian
[12:11] Speaker 1: school boys and that type of thing I did?
[12:16] Speaker 2: I mean, I remember as a kid watching the nineteen
[12:19] Speaker 2: ninety five Rugby World Cup in South Africa, you know,
[12:24] Speaker 2: just post apartheid, and obviously Nelson Mandela lifting the trophy
[12:28] Speaker 2: with Francois Pina, and as a kid thinking I want
[12:32] Speaker 2: to do that one day. That is what I want
[12:34] Speaker 2: to do. And so really from when we moved to Australia,
[12:39] Speaker 2: I was watching someone like George Smith and I was like,
[12:41] Speaker 2: I want to do that one day.
[12:42] Speaker 1: How good?
[12:44] Speaker 2: So good?
[12:44] Speaker 1: He wasn't that big either.
[12:46] Speaker 2: Incredible, just an absolute freakishly talented footballer. It was probably
[12:54] Speaker 2: really year eleven or twelve where I've started to feel like, well,
[12:58] Speaker 2: I've a lot of work. I feel like I've worked
[13:01] Speaker 2: harder than anyone else to put myself in a position
[13:06] Speaker 2: to actually do that. And then it was really fortunate
[13:08] Speaker 2: the year I year twelve was the Australian school Boys
[13:11] Speaker 2: tour of the UK, and so there was a great
[13:14] Speaker 2: opportunity to actually play Australian school Boys and the Western
[13:18] Speaker 2: Force were starting up the next year and so myself
[13:21] Speaker 2: and one or two others were sort of signed on
[13:25] Speaker 2: contracts to this new franchise that needed to play the
[13:28] Speaker 2: worst of Force. Oh wow. And one of the one
[13:31] Speaker 2: of the coaches for the Force had been coaching in
[13:36] Speaker 2: the Queensland school system and so obviously seen me play
[13:39] Speaker 2: and they put in a good word for me.
[13:41] Speaker 1: And what happened, So you went to the Western Force.
[13:45] Speaker 2: So yeah, we I moved there. I don't know, it's
[13:49] Speaker 2: like first of January two thousand and how old seventeen.
[13:52] Speaker 1: Well, but I guess you just moved from Zimbabwe to
[13:55] Speaker 1: Australia at fourteen, so that's not such a big deal.
[13:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's a you know, it's a it was.
[14:01] Speaker 2: It was great. It was really good for me. It
[14:03] Speaker 2: was a huge move. I'd actually been actually been offered
[14:06] Speaker 2: a more money to stay at the Reds, but as
[14:10] Speaker 2: part of their academy program, whereas the Western Four said listen,
[14:14] Speaker 2: we're not friddy, but you can come and train with
[14:16] Speaker 2: the full squad. I just thought an opportunity to actually
[14:19] Speaker 2: train with the with the top squad is something that
[14:21] Speaker 2: I want to take.
[14:22] Speaker 1: At seventeen especially.
[14:24] Speaker 2: And it was a real, you know, just tough decision
[14:27] Speaker 2: to make. I remember sitting down with with my dad
[14:30] Speaker 2: talking about the decision and he said, listen, suddenly, often the
[14:33] Speaker 2: best decision is the hardest decision, and you'll know, you'll
[14:36] Speaker 2: know in your gut what you want to do and
[14:38] Speaker 2: this is up to you and deciding no, I want
[14:40] Speaker 2: to have a crack and move across the country. And
[14:45] Speaker 2: it was a rude shot going from you know, training
[14:49] Speaker 2: and playing with boys to hardened men and your idols.
[14:57] Speaker 2: I remember Brandon Canner was in the in the team,
[15:01] Speaker 2: you know, he was a Wallaby at the time, and
[15:04] Speaker 2: in one of the first sessions calling him Brendan and
[15:08] Speaker 2: he turned around here he was like, who they called me? Brendan?
[15:13] Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I guess you very quickly learn and
[15:18] Speaker 2: it was it was a it was a really big
[15:19] Speaker 2: step up physically mentally, but I loved it. It was
[15:24] Speaker 2: what I wanted and really tried to, I don't know,
[15:29] Speaker 2: make make the most of every opportunity to to learn
[15:33] Speaker 2: at that age, because you know, you're you're with your
[15:36] Speaker 2: with your idols, and you clearly have so far to.
[15:39] Speaker 1: Go during that period before you were playing for Australia,
[15:44] Speaker 1: but during the period you're playing for Wisdom Force. Who
[15:46] Speaker 1: were your idols?
[15:48] Speaker 2: George Smith? Yeah, I mean he was someone i'd watched.
[15:54] Speaker 2: I'd really try to study his game. But then at
[15:57] Speaker 2: the Force you had guys like Nathan Sharp, Brendan Cannon
[16:00] Speaker 2: and Matt Giddo joined. There's a pretty good team there are.
[16:05] Speaker 2: There are a bunch of other guys and a lot
[16:07] Speaker 2: of them were really generous with their with their time
[16:10] Speaker 2: and actually talking to younger guys who wanted to learn.
[16:14] Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, just some of the things you're
[16:15] Speaker 1: talking about, being generous with the time, you know, doing
[16:20] Speaker 1: things that you love. You know, the fact that you
[16:25] Speaker 1: are able to feel like you're very Australian at an
[16:28] Speaker 1: early age, coming out of a country lake in Zimbabwe.
[16:33] Speaker 1: They seem to tell me a little bit about who
[16:36] Speaker 1: you are today as a politician, in terms of your job,
[16:40] Speaker 1: in terms of your commitment to your job. It seems
[16:44] Speaker 1: like it's it's like sometimes the hard decisions, which your
[16:50] Speaker 1: dad said, sometimes the hard decisions are the best ones
[16:52] Speaker 1: to make. It seems like when I look at you
[16:54] Speaker 1: as an independent in Parliament, you know, chasing down what
[16:59] Speaker 1: you believe in some hard decisions, but they're the best decisions.
[17:05] Speaker 1: It's like you don't pull away from a lot of
[17:08] Speaker 1: politicians tend to go with what's popular as opposed to
[17:12] Speaker 1: chasing the hard decisions. You play footy bit that way.
[17:16] Speaker 1: I mean when you when you were playing for Australia,
[17:18] Speaker 1: I mean you played pretty tough.
[17:20] Speaker 2: You were feeling it.
[17:21] Speaker 1: Now you got a few old and bat wish they hadn't,
[17:26] Speaker 1: but you did play pretty tough and you mix it up,
[17:31] Speaker 1: especially against the All Blacks, who were at their prime
[17:33] Speaker 1: at the time. You didn't sort of pull any punches.
[17:37] Speaker 1: I don't mean in that sense, but you you took
[17:40] Speaker 1: them on.
[17:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love I love the physical part of the game, but.
[17:44] Speaker 1: There's more than I and the greatest respect, I haven't
[17:47] Speaker 1: have played anything like what you have done, but what
[17:50] Speaker 1: I'm imagining is that it's not just physical. To be
[17:53] Speaker 1: able to take on the physical game against you know,
[17:55] Speaker 1: the All Blacks, one of the greatest countries when it
[17:58] Speaker 1: comes to rugby un all time, and also tough, you
[18:02] Speaker 1: have to have a mental condition to do that. There's
[18:04] Speaker 1: a mentality associated with being physical. You can't say I'm
[18:10] Speaker 1: going to go be physical. I don't care. I mean,
[18:11] Speaker 1: there are some crazy bastards who are highlight that, but
[18:14] Speaker 1: generally speaking, a normal rational person is not that way.
[18:20] Speaker 1: And you know you are going to get injured and
[18:22] Speaker 1: you go on against tough sides. That takes a mentality.
[18:25] Speaker 1: That mentality is a tough mentality. And it's a bit
[18:28] Speaker 1: going back a little bit, and I'm wondering whether this
[18:30] Speaker 1: is your background has informed any of this sort of stuff.
[18:33] Speaker 1: You know, where you came from, which you saw when
[18:35] Speaker 1: you're a kid at fourteen where you came astray, you
[18:36] Speaker 1: how to make a new life. You had to become committed,
[18:39] Speaker 1: not just obsessed, but mentality is a big part of
[18:42] Speaker 1: all that, that process of survival. Do you think those
[18:47] Speaker 1: events that part of your life actually galvanize your hard
[18:53] Speaker 1: mental state to allow you to become that physical for sure.
[18:58] Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're you're young years are so
[19:03] Speaker 2: formative and actually in developing who you become. And I
[19:13] Speaker 2: think a bunch of things. I mean, one, just growing
[19:17] Speaker 2: up in a farm, I think you feel like you're
[19:20] Speaker 2: probably I don't know, slightly tougher than some of the
[19:25] Speaker 2: other kids at a young age because you're doing stuff.
[19:29] Speaker 2: You're helping, you know, branding cattle and tackling sheep and
[19:33] Speaker 2: you know that's what you do for fun kind of thing.
[19:35] Speaker 2: So from a young age. But then I do think,
[19:39] Speaker 2: you know, going through what my family went through in
[19:41] Speaker 2: Zimbabwe and then moving to Australia, it gave me such
[19:45] Speaker 2: a It was a weird thing because on the one hand,
[19:47] Speaker 2: it was like, this isn't a golden opportunity and I'm
[19:50] Speaker 2: going to make the most of it. But I also
[19:53] Speaker 2: have a big chunk of guilt because all my classmates
[19:58] Speaker 2: back in ZIM they're not doing it. They don't have
[20:01] Speaker 2: this opportunity. You know, how come my family gets the
[20:04] Speaker 2: opportunity and not them that they are the ones suffering
[20:07] Speaker 2: through hyperinflation and a terrible government and fuel shortages and
[20:12] Speaker 2: everything else that comes with that. And I think it
[20:17] Speaker 2: sort of helped develop kind of a real determination to
[20:23] Speaker 2: be willing to take on anything. And as to going
[20:28] Speaker 2: into politics, I mean, I truly love this place, like
[20:33] Speaker 2: this is this is home for me. Now. Australia is
[20:36] Speaker 2: an incredible country, and I think when you believe your
[20:38] Speaker 2: country is great, you want to hold it to a
[20:40] Speaker 2: high standard and say, like, let's not just be comfortable
[20:42] Speaker 2: how it is. Let's continue to ensure that is a
[20:45] Speaker 2: great country for everyone. And yeah, I mean I think
[20:51] Speaker 2: that's a little bit of how I try to approach things.
[20:54] Speaker 1: But do you think then that you owe something to
[21:00] Speaker 1: the country. I mean, do you ever feel I don't
[21:04] Speaker 1: mean in a sort of subservient way, but I mean
[21:08] Speaker 1: this country did good for me and could dig with
[21:10] Speaker 1: my family, and as you mentioned, some of your friends
[21:13] Speaker 1: didn't get that opportunity. Do you think that therefore you
[21:17] Speaker 1: have to pay it forward, so to speak. As a politician,
[21:22] Speaker 1: I have to do what I firmly believe in, honestly
[21:24] Speaker 1: believe in it is the right thing to do for
[21:26] Speaker 1: this country.
[21:27] Speaker 2: I felt that since I was fourteen when Australia gave
[21:31] Speaker 2: my family an opportunity. So yeah, I mean I think, yes,
[21:38] Speaker 2: like I've wanted to repay the faith in me and
[21:44] Speaker 2: my family. But I guess, you know, the longer I've
[21:48] Speaker 2: been here, it truly feels like home, and I just
[21:50] Speaker 2: want to make things better and actually make our political
[21:54] Speaker 2: system work for people and start to think about longer term,
[21:59] Speaker 2: Like it just seems when you sit back and you
[22:02] Speaker 2: watch the news and everything is a crisis, and you
[22:06] Speaker 2: realize in politics like things only become a crisis when
[22:08] Speaker 2: you don't deal with them early. And the thing we
[22:11] Speaker 2: haven't had is politicians who, rather than as you said,
[22:15] Speaker 2: just do the doing the popular thing or not taking
[22:17] Speaker 2: on any hard issue. You do that for too long
[22:20] Speaker 2: and then everything just becomes a crisis and then you're,
[22:22] Speaker 2: you know, in a really tough situation. So yeah, it's
[22:29] Speaker 2: been I've been in a Senate of four years. It's
[22:32] Speaker 2: been fascinating. Like I had no idea what to keep
[22:34] Speaker 2: myself into.
[22:34] Speaker 1: Well, why did you do it? I mean, what was
[22:38] Speaker 1: it that got you into politics? Is someone to come
[22:39] Speaker 1: and tap in a show and say, listen mate, we reckon.
[22:42] Speaker 1: You'd be a really good politician. Are you going to
[22:44] Speaker 1: run for the Senate?
[22:45] Speaker 2: What happened? Or did you?
[22:45] Speaker 1: Were you studying it?
[22:46] Speaker 2: No, that's exactly what happened. I finished after the twenty
[22:50] Speaker 2: nineteen World Cup. I'd finished with Australian rugby. I was
[22:53] Speaker 2: up in Japan playing for a team up there, the
[22:57] Speaker 2: Panasonic Wild Nights, a great team. Robbie Deans was the coach.
[23:01] Speaker 2: I haven't really enjoying it. And then COVID hit and
[23:06] Speaker 2: came back here and just really knew it was time
[23:09] Speaker 2: to move on to something else. I'd always sort of said,
[23:11] Speaker 2: once I lost that real drive and enjoyment for it,
[23:15] Speaker 2: I wanted to do something else. And you probably could
[23:18] Speaker 2: have gone a few more years, but just new was
[23:20] Speaker 2: the time. And was then working on a conservation and
[23:23] Speaker 2: sort of community development project back in Zimbabwe with my
[23:26] Speaker 2: brother Steve and a group in Canberra who set up
[23:31] Speaker 2: to try and get a Senate senator. Independent senator up
[23:36] Speaker 2: got in touch and said hey, we're running these consultations
[23:38] Speaker 2: and your name keeps coming up, like would you consider
[23:40] Speaker 2: putting your name forward? And initially I said, I love
[23:44] Speaker 2: what you're doing, but absolutely no chance.
[23:46] Speaker 1: The politician, My god, good luck with it.
[23:50] Speaker 2: They came back a few more times, and the more
[23:52] Speaker 2: I thought about it, it was one of those things
[23:55] Speaker 2: where I thought, well, I'm frustrated with politics, like so
[24:00] Speaker 2: many people. Surely we can do it better. And I
[24:04] Speaker 2: don't know about you, but I think so many decisions
[24:07] Speaker 2: you get to the point where you're like, I know,
[24:09] Speaker 2: I'll regret not having a crack. It's very improbable that
[24:12] Speaker 2: this happens, but I've just got to actually have a
[24:15] Speaker 2: have a go at this. And so in hindsight, I
[24:18] Speaker 2: left it very late, like I think I announced end
[24:21] Speaker 2: of December, and you know, the election could have been
[24:24] Speaker 2: anywhere between like February and May. Thank goodness, Morrison called
[24:27] Speaker 2: it in May actually so announced I was running. I
[24:31] Speaker 2: was like, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna do this with
[24:33] Speaker 2: another party or what was this? An independent as an
[24:37] Speaker 2: which has never happened in the Act before. But clearly
[24:39] Speaker 2: you know we've seen doctor Helen Haynes, a bunch of
[24:41] Speaker 2: other independent Zali Stegel, a bunch of others win seats,
[24:45] Speaker 2: and there was this real sense that, you know, people
[24:46] Speaker 2: are frustrated with politics. So anyway, I get back to Australia.
[24:50] Speaker 2: I caught up with Jackie Lamby probably a Jan or
[24:54] Speaker 2: Feb in Canberra and she just said, I'll mate good
[24:57] Speaker 2: on you, but you're no chance.
[24:59] Speaker 1: Like that's exactly had the words she would have used.
[25:01] Speaker 2: You've left this way too late, but good on your
[25:04] Speaker 2: good luck and again very generous with the time. Gave
[25:08] Speaker 2: me a bunch of things to think about and told
[25:10] Speaker 2: me a bit of what happens in there. And I
[25:13] Speaker 2: think it was just a combination of people. You know,
[25:15] Speaker 2: Morrison government was on the nose. The local Liberal senator
[25:18] Speaker 2: was also on the nose. People didn't feel like he
[25:21] Speaker 2: represented what cam Berans want. It was a z sense
[25:24] Speaker 2: of Soldio.
[25:25] Speaker 1: He was the assistant treasurer or something he was. He's
[25:29] Speaker 1: somewhere on Fredenberg.
[25:30] Speaker 2: He was one of the ministers for the Pacific and
[25:33] Speaker 2: all the whole debarker with the Solomon Islands. It just
[25:37] Speaker 2: really wasn't going well. And so I think it was
[25:39] Speaker 2: just this moment in time, combination of factors that cam
[25:42] Speaker 2: Barans went some of some of us have heard of this.
[25:46] Speaker 2: You know footy player, let's give him a crack.
[25:50] Speaker 1: We played for Australia, so that's's a big star.
[25:52] Speaker 2: It's a foot in the door with a bunch of people,
[25:54] Speaker 2: not everyone. Some people afterwards have said, listen, I didn't
[25:57] Speaker 2: vote for the first time because I thought you were
[25:59] Speaker 2: some dumb footy But I really like what you're doing now,
[26:02] Speaker 2: so I think it kind of worked both ways. But yeah,
[26:05] Speaker 2: that's that's kind of how it happened and how I
[26:07] Speaker 2: got into it.
[26:08] Speaker 1: And why did you decide independent and not to say labor, liberal,
[26:13] Speaker 1: Nationals or whover else? Well, what deals for that matter,
[26:17] Speaker 1: I know the deals on a party, but you know, yeah,
[26:21] Speaker 1: come onto the plots.
[26:23] Speaker 2: I think one of the things that turned me off
[26:25] Speaker 2: politics was clearly you see people who go into politics
[26:31] Speaker 2: for with good intentions, for good reasons, and then they
[26:34] Speaker 2: have to toe this party line and say things that
[26:38] Speaker 2: you see them in the evening news and you think
[26:41] Speaker 2: you surely don't believe that, like that's that's that's you're
[26:44] Speaker 2: surely just being told to say that. And I just
[26:47] Speaker 2: I don't know, I couldn't do it. I've got no
[26:49] Speaker 2: interest in in doing that, And I think that was
[26:52] Speaker 2: the only reason why I thought, oh, this is actually interesting.
[26:54] Speaker 2: As the Independent, I'm only accountable to people in the
[26:56] Speaker 2: Act and I feel aligned on values with Yeah, I
[27:01] Speaker 2: think the majority of Canbers. There's so much that we
[27:05] Speaker 2: actually have in common, and being really frustrated by this
[27:10] Speaker 2: kind of growing left first right politics in Australia which
[27:15] Speaker 2: we seem to be importing from the US a little bit.
[27:18] Speaker 2: Actually we agree on so many things and it seems
[27:21] Speaker 2: to me that one of the big fights is actually
[27:24] Speaker 2: the Australian people against vested interests. Let's actually figure that
[27:28] Speaker 2: out before we go down all these rabbit holes of
[27:31] Speaker 2: you know, cultural wars and things that I think often
[27:35] Speaker 2: are more distraction from the issue. And so I thought, well,
[27:38] Speaker 2: as an independent, you can actually talk to people and
[27:41] Speaker 2: say what you think, and especially in the change your mind, and.
[27:44] Speaker 1: Especially in the Senate because you have a great voice
[27:46] Speaker 1: in the Senate, because everything's got to get through there
[27:47] Speaker 1: at some stage.
[27:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, it was Gee's a step learning curve.
[27:53] Speaker 2: The way the numbers were after that twenty twenty two election.
[27:57] Speaker 2: The government needed the Greens plus one initially and then
[28:04] Speaker 2: then two independence, and so you know the government constantly
[28:10] Speaker 2: wanted myself for Jackie Lamby's vote, and so you're having
[28:13] Speaker 2: to dive into all sorts of parts of legislation that
[28:17] Speaker 2: you never really thought about before. But it's fascinating, Like
[28:21] Speaker 2: you go deep into anything, it's it's interesting once you
[28:24] Speaker 2: start to meet the different people involved, how it affects things,
[28:27] Speaker 2: really trying to wagh things up and then taking that
[28:29] Speaker 2: back to cam Barons and saying, hey, these are this
[28:32] Speaker 2: is the legislation. These are the good businesse are the
[28:34] Speaker 2: bad businis, the trade offs. So yeah, one cur if
[28:40] Speaker 2: you could help me out here, like.
[28:43] Speaker 1: How do you reconcile and you're a politician, how do
[28:48] Speaker 1: politicians reconcile? And maybe the answer is pretty obvious, but
[28:52] Speaker 1: party ideology as opposed to the ideology the person who's
[28:56] Speaker 1: been voted for. In other words, you stand in a
[28:59] Speaker 1: particular seed in Canberra, your constituencies vote you in based
[29:05] Speaker 1: on what they consider to be your ideology as you
[29:08] Speaker 1: have expressed it them and all the functions and things
[29:10] Speaker 1: you do. Then let's say, for example, you then join
[29:15] Speaker 1: a Labor party or to say you're a Labor senator,
[29:19] Speaker 1: you're on their ticket. The Labor party itself has an ideology,
[29:27] Speaker 1: not from anyone, not from any one particular individual, but
[29:31] Speaker 1: it has an ideology. How do politicians deal with that?
[29:35] Speaker 1: Like if something you just mentioned, you just got to
[29:38] Speaker 1: toe the party line Labor, yes, you can't get say,
[29:41] Speaker 1: nobody in Labe ever argues against what the premis said.
[29:46] Speaker 1: It's like if you, you know, you sort of gather
[29:50] Speaker 1: the circle the wagons around and that's it. It's unbreakable Liberal.
[29:56] Speaker 1: You know, they sort of bust out all the time
[29:58] Speaker 1: and it doesn't look and they get punished because it
[30:00] Speaker 1: looks like they're arguing with each other. Labors are least smart.
[30:04] Speaker 1: It doesn't look that way. It looks like they're solid
[30:05] Speaker 1: on everything. But that's all about an ideology that gets
[30:09] Speaker 1: sold to you, sold to you, but expressed you from somebody.
[30:13] Speaker 1: And is it the Prime Minister who does it? Or
[30:15] Speaker 1: is it I mean, you must have observed this at least,
[30:18] Speaker 1: or is it somebody behind the scenes who none of
[30:20] Speaker 1: us get to talk to. Will vote for because with you,
[30:24] Speaker 1: I know your ideology, I'm voting for you. I know
[30:26] Speaker 1: exactly what I'm getting when I'm voting.
[30:33] Speaker 2: I don't really know. I guess it comes down to
[30:35] Speaker 2: the culture of a party and you know what is culture?
[30:39] Speaker 2: How does that that evolve? But it is. It is
[30:45] Speaker 2: a strange thing. And you know, this sort of party
[30:49] Speaker 2: discipline if you look across the world, Australia is like
[30:54] Speaker 2: a bit of an outlier. In the US, yes you're
[30:57] Speaker 2: part of a party, but yeah, those members and senators
[31:02] Speaker 2: are often just voting how they think is best for
[31:05] Speaker 2: their district or their state, whereas here in Australia it's
[31:10] Speaker 2: very much party And you know, that's not how the
[31:14] Speaker 2: first parliament operated in Australia, like there were a heap
[31:17] Speaker 2: of independents and people just elected to represent their electorates
[31:21] Speaker 2: their state and come together and you know, govern and
[31:26] Speaker 2: make laws and deal with issues. But it has become
[31:30] Speaker 2: this entrenched party system where the parties say minority government
[31:37] Speaker 2: would be an absolute disaster because it would be chaos.
[31:40] Speaker 2: But if you look at a bunch of the Nordic countries,
[31:42] Speaker 2: you know they've had minority government for a very long
[31:45] Speaker 2: time and it actually means that you have to negotiate.
[31:47] Speaker 2: And that's the thing I saw in the Senate in
[31:50] Speaker 2: the last term was when the government had to negotiate
[31:54] Speaker 2: with multiple people. Yes, it was slower. I'm sure it
[31:57] Speaker 2: was a massive hassle for them, right, messier. But I
[32:03] Speaker 2: really think that we ultimately got better legislation because as
[32:06] Speaker 2: an independent, I'm not just listening to one group. I
[32:10] Speaker 2: want to hear everyone's opinion. And you know, the territories
[32:12] Speaker 2: don't think get two senators, states get twelve. I'm very
[32:15] Speaker 2: aware that there are a bunch of Camberans who don't
[32:18] Speaker 2: like me. There's a bunch of probably hate my guts.
[32:20] Speaker 2: I represent them, and I want to hear those views
[32:22] Speaker 2: and actually balance that sort of broad perspective of views
[32:26] Speaker 2: and then really have to say, well, I can see
[32:29] Speaker 2: those different perspectives, but I actually really think like this
[32:32] Speaker 2: is the best decision, and I'm gonna have to be
[32:35] Speaker 2: able to front up to people who are going to
[32:37] Speaker 2: be disappointed. And I think that's when you amending bills
[32:41] Speaker 2: in that way, you get better legislation. So I don't
[32:44] Speaker 2: really know how they how they do it, you know,
[32:47] Speaker 2: I think there's different philosophies there labeled as you say,
[32:51] Speaker 2: say like we're stronger when we're all together, and I
[32:54] Speaker 2: think the Prime Minister, clearly from what I've seen, has
[32:57] Speaker 2: been crushing dissent totally within the party the Libs. Yeah,
[33:03] Speaker 2: it can be messy, but I think it can actually
[33:05] Speaker 2: be a strength. When you have different people in a
[33:07] Speaker 2: party voicing different views from different parts of the community.
[33:12] Speaker 2: People can say, well, I actually agree with everything the
[33:15] Speaker 2: party does, but how I really like that that person
[33:17] Speaker 2: and they do some good stuff on this and that
[33:19] Speaker 2: and more and more. I think people want more collaboration
[33:24] Speaker 2: and just good faith work amongst parties and senators and members.
[33:30] Speaker 2: And that's the thing. Yeah. One of the things I
[33:33] Speaker 2: laugh about it being an independent is I can do that,
[33:35] Speaker 2: I can work with.
[33:36] Speaker 1: Well, you're the person, You're the person who can show
[33:38] Speaker 1: the descent or a different idea. Because what's interesting. A
[33:40] Speaker 1: good example of all this is, you know, this is
[33:43] Speaker 1: one of the place I wanted to go to, and
[33:46] Speaker 1: you've done a lot of really good work in this regard.
[33:48] Speaker 1: But is the couple of gains tax Once the capital
[33:52] Speaker 1: gains taxes announced, it looked like to me that every
[33:55] Speaker 1: single labor person was issued a little note and this
[33:59] Speaker 1: is what you say. You doesn't matter what the question is,
[34:03] Speaker 1: is what you say, And it's all about intergenerational inequity.
[34:06] Speaker 1: Blah blah blah, blah. By the way, it's not a
[34:08] Speaker 1: new term. I remember Costello using that in two thousand
[34:11] Speaker 1: and five, but it doesn't matter. And then it was
[34:14] Speaker 1: up to independence or people are you you talked about
[34:16] Speaker 1: the widow tax or it's called the divorce attack as well,
[34:19] Speaker 1: because it's an unintended I think, I think from Treasury's
[34:23] Speaker 1: point of view, not necessarily the treasurer because he probably
[34:25] Speaker 1: didn't think about it, but the Treasury's point of view,
[34:27] Speaker 1: an unintended consequence. Because complicated stuff like that always has
[34:30] Speaker 1: unintended consequences. It must have taken someone like you. You must
[34:33] Speaker 1: have gone and read the legislation to work that out.
[34:36] Speaker 1: You read through all the stuff.
[34:37] Speaker 2: Team to look at it and presentages saw it and said,
[34:40] Speaker 2: hang on, this is this is an issue, and.
[34:41] Speaker 1: The widow's tax is a good example. Whereas in a
[34:44] Speaker 1: major party, which is I agree it's a problem, is
[34:47] Speaker 1: that they just tow the line. No one actually critically
[34:50] Speaker 1: examines the legislation and says, oh, listen, albow, I'm in
[34:53] Speaker 1: your party, but mate, I think we could have got
[34:56] Speaker 1: this bit wrong. Why don't we just say we got
[34:58] Speaker 1: that wrong and we'll fix it, you know, Like whereas
[35:03] Speaker 1: it needs independence to say that. Do you feel as
[35:08] Speaker 1: though that's sort of your job to pick the exceptions
[35:10] Speaker 1: out in stuff that is presented to you.
[35:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, part of it. I mean my commitment to people
[35:16] Speaker 2: in the Act is that I'll engage in good faith
[35:19] Speaker 2: on all legislation.
[35:21] Speaker 1: What does it mean do you engage with your constituency
[35:24] Speaker 1: as well?
[35:25] Speaker 2: Yeah? So, you know, one, just be open to ideas
[35:28] Speaker 2: rather than just shutting stuff down before you even read it,
[35:31] Speaker 2: right and then really diving into the detail you It
[35:34] Speaker 2: was someone on my team who actually read that and
[35:35] Speaker 2: when this could be really a problem for divorces or
[35:39] Speaker 2: if your partner dies. The government's saying that they're grandfathering,
[35:43] Speaker 2: but this will have a really really big impact on
[35:46] Speaker 2: some people, and so so raising that and then actually
[35:50] Speaker 2: engaging with the different groups that are affected, the experts
[35:55] Speaker 2: in the space, you know, different peak bodies, and then
[35:58] Speaker 2: ultimately talking to camp barons and saying what do you
[36:01] Speaker 2: think about this? And you know, on the government's changes.
[36:04] Speaker 2: I'd been making the case for changes to property tax
[36:09] Speaker 2: concessions at the last two elections.
[36:13] Speaker 1: About negative gearing capital against text discounst.
[36:15] Speaker 2: I truly think that we have to treat housing more
[36:20] Speaker 2: as something that we truly want to be accessible and affordable,
[36:23] Speaker 2: rather than as an investment vehicle. And yeah, sure people
[36:26] Speaker 2: have made a lot of money out of housing, but
[36:29] Speaker 2: at the expense of what we now have such unaffordable housing,
[36:33] Speaker 2: so many people locked out of the markets. And so
[36:35] Speaker 2: I really take my hat off to the Treasurer for
[36:38] Speaker 2: getting those changes done. I don't feel like the case
[36:42] Speaker 2: had been made to broaden that across everything and then
[36:45] Speaker 2: then to chuck in you trusts that are being used
[36:49] Speaker 2: by small businesses, and there's so much to unpack there,
[36:52] Speaker 2: and you know, that's where we really dove into the
[36:54] Speaker 2: detail identify the widows tax, pushed hard, worked with the
[36:57] Speaker 2: coalition to sort of really raise the the profile of
[37:01] Speaker 2: that and clearly it's not the intention of legislation. The
[37:04] Speaker 2: governments now said that they're going to fix it, which is.
[37:06] Speaker 1: Feaced widows the circle widow's tax, just so for our
[37:10] Speaker 1: audience so we know as they know what we're talking about,
[37:12] Speaker 1: because not everyone's onto it, but we're talking about if
[37:15] Speaker 1: you and your husband buy something together or a husband
[37:19] Speaker 1: and wife or whatever the partners and one partner dies,
[37:23] Speaker 1: then we divorced or get divorced. What was grandfather before
[37:29] Speaker 1: under the announcement in the budget whereby you know, you
[37:33] Speaker 1: were able to take advantage previously, take advantage of the
[37:36] Speaker 1: capital gains tax discount, you only pay tax on fifty
[37:39] Speaker 1: per cent of the profit that was grandfather in the budget.
[37:42] Speaker 1: As a result of that individual dying or divorce happening,
[37:47] Speaker 1: you now own the whole property. You lose that grandfather
[37:50] Speaker 1: in status. And as a result of that, that property
[37:53] Speaker 1: now is only going to get in dexation in terms
[37:56] Speaker 1: of the capital gains tax ultimate profit that you pay
[37:59] Speaker 1: on the on the sale. And so what you've been
[38:03] Speaker 1: really very stoic about, but also very there been a
[38:07] Speaker 1: lot of volume coming from David Pocock about this. A
[38:10] Speaker 1: lot of volume is talking about making that building an
[38:15] Speaker 1: exception into the legislation to pull that what seems to
[38:19] Speaker 1: be unfairn us out.
[38:20] Speaker 2: Well, just to clarify that is that is clearly not
[38:23] Speaker 2: the intention of grandfathering arrangements. The government has said you
[38:30] Speaker 2: made these investments under the current rules, We're going to
[38:32] Speaker 2: honor that. Yeah, for new investments there will be a
[38:36] Speaker 2: different different rules. You won't get the benefits if you
[38:39] Speaker 2: invest in the existing market. If it's a new build
[38:41] Speaker 2: you do get them the concern I raise it. This
[38:45] Speaker 2: will mostly impact women. Yeah, on average, they have less
[38:49] Speaker 2: super than us men when they retire, and they live
[38:51] Speaker 2: longer than us.
[38:52] Speaker 1: On men, we all die before them.
[38:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you know, the government said, yep, we'll
[38:58] Speaker 2: fix this. Last week I had a woman in her
[39:02] Speaker 2: forties come to my office and say, you know, survivor
[39:07] Speaker 2: of family investic violence, getting a divorce, and the lender
[39:12] Speaker 2: has said, you did have pre approved finance so that
[39:15] Speaker 2: you can take over the property after your settlement, but
[39:19] Speaker 2: based on the law changes, we're taking that away now.
[39:23] Speaker 2: And so there's a real urgency and you just see
[39:25] Speaker 2: the impact.
[39:25] Speaker 1: So she couldn't bid it a property at an auction
[39:27] Speaker 1: or some of them.
[39:28] Speaker 2: So she couldn't get the investment property that her and
[39:30] Speaker 2: her current partner had in an a joint name that
[39:35] Speaker 2: couldn't be transferred to her because the bank said, well,
[39:38] Speaker 2: under the current I can't lends you the money laws,
[39:40] Speaker 2: I can't look lend you the money because you don't
[39:41] Speaker 2: get you can't negatively gear it.
[39:43] Speaker 1: But she had to lose a deposit. Had she had
[39:45] Speaker 1: she'd already paid a deposit.
[39:47] Speaker 2: I'm not actually sure, but probably but it's still unfair.
[39:49] Speaker 2: It's unfair and it's not the intention of the laws,
[39:52] Speaker 2: and so I guess it. It highlights a couple of things.
[39:54] Speaker 2: These laws were really rushed through Parliament, I think, doesn't
[39:57] Speaker 2: it because they were under pressure. You get that they
[40:00] Speaker 2: just want it done with. My argument is that if
[40:05] Speaker 2: you really believe in something, then make the case and
[40:08] Speaker 2: put it through a Senate committee that's actually going to
[40:10] Speaker 2: find these things. You can draft amendments, you can sort
[40:12] Speaker 2: it out. But didn't they do that? They did?
[40:14] Speaker 1: Didn't they have a Senate inquiry into the legers like
[40:16] Speaker 1: a day so it was so short that's ridiculous.
[40:21] Speaker 2: So you know they but marklef said they're going to
[40:24] Speaker 2: fix it. My argument now is fix it quickly because
[40:26] Speaker 2: there's no doubt more people out there in this situation
[40:31] Speaker 2: and they need certainty. Lenders need certainty. Lenders obviously just
[40:34] Speaker 2: going to land according to the floor.
[40:36] Speaker 1: Totally now the lenders and by the way, you're right,
[40:40] Speaker 1: the lenders will not lend the money under the current
[40:43] Speaker 1: legislation unless it gets mended and amended immediately. So what
[40:48] Speaker 1: do you think about when government says to you or
[40:51] Speaker 1: I don't know, the House of reps. It went through,
[40:53] Speaker 1: the whole thing went through. This was not I don't
[40:56] Speaker 1: remember this being discussed when I went through the lower House.
[40:58] Speaker 2: No, it was in the Senate.
[40:59] Speaker 1: I mean that it's only got discussed in the Senate.
[41:02] Speaker 1: Why does anyone discuss in the lower House.
[41:05] Speaker 2: Well, again, the House, the way it's been for a
[41:10] Speaker 2: long time is that the one party has the majority
[41:13] Speaker 2: in the House, and when you control the House or
[41:16] Speaker 2: the Senate, you can just do whatever you want.
[41:18] Speaker 1: So they've got the Green but they've got the Greens
[41:21] Speaker 1: on side.
[41:22] Speaker 2: Had the Greens on side, but they didn't need them
[41:24] Speaker 2: and they didn't need them in the House. And so
[41:27] Speaker 2: you know, the government can introduce a bill in the
[41:29] Speaker 2: morning and pass it in the afternoon in the House
[41:32] Speaker 2: because they can do whatever they want. They can suspend
[41:33] Speaker 2: standing oders and say right, we're dealing with this bill,
[41:35] Speaker 2: put it to a vote. People can try and jump
[41:38] Speaker 2: up and down. They really can't do anything because it
[41:41] Speaker 2: gets voted in the Senate. Since the Howard government's last term,
[41:47] Speaker 2: no government has had a majority, and I think it's
[41:49] Speaker 2: a great check on power. And so really the Senate
[41:52] Speaker 2: is where a lot of scrutiny happens there's a lot
[41:55] Speaker 2: of good work that gets missed in the Senate. I
[41:57] Speaker 2: think in politics generally. You know, people see a clip
[42:01] Speaker 2: from question time on the news. It's disgraceful, you know,
[42:03] Speaker 2: it is just.
[42:04] Speaker 1: The way they ribbon each other.
[42:05] Speaker 2: It was yelling at each other, no one answering a question.
[42:10] Speaker 2: You know, politicians will say, well, it's theater. I don't know,
[42:12] Speaker 2: I don't know how useful it is. But actually there's
[42:15] Speaker 2: a lot of good faith work that happens in the Senate.
[42:17] Speaker 2: On Senate committees. You know, there's all these rolling inquiries
[42:20] Speaker 2: into different things, and then when legislation comes through, generally
[42:23] Speaker 2: it'll get referred to a Senate inquiry. Whereas a senator
[42:26] Speaker 2: you can turn up, you can ask questions at the
[42:28] Speaker 2: Department of Stakeholders of anyone, and often that's where all
[42:32] Speaker 2: these little issues and oversights and errors in how things
[42:36] Speaker 2: have been drafted get found and hopefully fixed.
[42:40] Speaker 1: It was just prior to you coming on, I heard
[42:43] Speaker 1: I read something that the government's actually sort of pretty
[42:46] Speaker 1: much caved in to your pressure and that they're looking
[42:50] Speaker 1: at bringing forward the amendments to the windows tax, so called.
[42:54] Speaker 2: I hope so exception. You know, there's broad support. You know,
[42:59] Speaker 2: the cold what this fixed as soon as possible. The
[43:02] Speaker 2: Greens one, it fixed, Pully Enhanson once it fixed. So
[43:06] Speaker 2: I think if the government does it, the Senate will
[43:08] Speaker 2: actually look to try and do something without without the government.
[43:12] Speaker 2: But I assume the Government will really just fix it quickly.
[43:14] Speaker 1: So I'd like to move just onto something else because
[43:17] Speaker 1: it's an important one I think. And it's your position
[43:20] Speaker 1: on gambling. You've been pretty strong on gambling in Australia,
[43:25] Speaker 1: but what someone who's played a lot of sport where
[43:28] Speaker 1: gambling was a you know, has been a big sponsor
[43:31] Speaker 1: of for a long time, particularly on TV on television
[43:34] Speaker 1: when you're on Jerseys on TV, when you're watching it,
[43:37] Speaker 1: et cetera. A lot of the TV stations rely upon
[43:41] Speaker 1: gambling institutions to be the big advertisers during those programs.
[43:46] Speaker 1: What's your position on gambling now and in particular, maybe
[43:49] Speaker 1: even in particular relative to sport, given someone has come
[43:52] Speaker 1: out of the sport environment, what's Dave Polkock's position.
[43:58] Speaker 2: It's been a really open a when you start to
[44:01] Speaker 2: look at the research and then talk to people who've
[44:05] Speaker 2: been impacted by gambling addiction. We're the biggest losers in
[44:11] Speaker 2: the world per capita.
[44:13] Speaker 1: Our loss rate in austral is the biggest in the world.
[44:15] Speaker 2: We lose more than any other country.
[44:16] Speaker 1: Well, so the gambling companies make more money basically the hold,
[44:20] Speaker 1: but they call the hold.
[44:21] Speaker 2: We're losing thirty two billion dollars a year. Yes, a
[44:26] Speaker 2: big chunk of that's pokies and that's you know, state
[44:28] Speaker 2: and territory legislation. I think there's a huge amount of
[44:30] Speaker 2: work to do there to actually better look after people
[44:33] Speaker 2: in our communities. But when it comes to yes, online
[44:38] Speaker 2: gambling sports betting, it's the fastest growing in terms of losses,
[44:44] Speaker 2: and ads are everywhere and you know they advertise because
[44:49] Speaker 2: it works. Three out of four young Australians now think
[44:52] Speaker 2: that betting is just a normal part of enjoying sport
[44:57] Speaker 2: and as a form of fresh laugh. I remember as
[45:00] Speaker 2: a kid how much I loved rugby. I'd never seen
[45:05] Speaker 2: a gambling ad. It never entered my mind. I loved
[45:10] Speaker 2: I loved drug before, what it was to me, what
[45:12] Speaker 2: it represented to me, how it made me feel. And
[45:17] Speaker 2: I think more and more it's about the odds. It's
[45:20] Speaker 2: about you know, placing a bit, and so we're normalizing gambling.
[45:25] Speaker 2: No one's saying that we should make gambling illegal. If
[45:28] Speaker 2: you want to have a punt and you're O eighteen,
[45:30] Speaker 2: go for it. But I have a real problem to
[45:33] Speaker 2: just how saturated everything has become in gambling ads and
[45:37] Speaker 2: the impact that's having on people and families.
[45:40] Speaker 1: And what would you say though, to say, I don't know.
[45:42] Speaker 1: One of the TV stations who might be televising the
[45:46] Speaker 1: footing and says, look, we're going to pay a huge
[45:49] Speaker 1: amount of broadcasting rights to Peter Valanders at the NRL
[45:56] Speaker 1: and in order for us to get our money back,
[45:58] Speaker 1: we have to have it. Obviously, we have to advertise
[46:00] Speaker 1: during prime time and the biggest advertisers are I don't know,
[46:05] Speaker 1: I don't even know the names of the betting companies,
[46:06] Speaker 1: but are the betting companies And we've got to get
[46:09] Speaker 1: a return on our five point five billion dollars. If
[46:11] Speaker 1: we've promised and rell over the next star. I think
[46:14] Speaker 1: it's a ten year deal, whatever it is, what do
[46:17] Speaker 1: you say to them and when they if they come
[46:19] Speaker 1: down to Canberra and they'll come and see you, they'll
[46:20] Speaker 1: they'll lobby you, I guess, and they So let's go
[46:22] Speaker 1: see David Pocock we need to talk to him about it,
[46:25] Speaker 1: because you know, we want this legislation maybe to be
[46:27] Speaker 1: amended or changed or blocked in Senate. What do you
[46:30] Speaker 1: say and how do you approach that?
[46:33] Speaker 2: So, if you look at their revenue, I think it's
[46:35] Speaker 2: just just under ten percent of their ad revenue comes
[46:38] Speaker 2: from gambling companies. By far, the biggest advertisers are the
[46:43] Speaker 2: big retailers. You're harving Normans, you're otherwise.
[46:46] Speaker 1: But clearly Kentucky fright, et cetera.
[46:47] Speaker 2: Ten percent is not huge, but it's meaningful. The thing
[46:51] Speaker 2: I would have loved to have seen is a bit
[46:54] Speaker 2: of imagination from the government to actually say, Okay, this
[46:59] Speaker 2: is clearly a problem. How do we actually provide some
[47:02] Speaker 2: sort of transition package to free to air television to
[47:05] Speaker 2: make sure that everyone wants a thriving, free to a
[47:09] Speaker 2: television sector. It's something that you need in a healthy democracy.
[47:13] Speaker 2: You need that access to news and content. At one percent,
[47:19] Speaker 2: you know, levy on bets place in this country would
[47:22] Speaker 2: more than cover that. And so I'm really sympathetic to
[47:26] Speaker 2: their argument. Yes, times are times are tough for.
[47:31] Speaker 1: You mean, you tax the you text the gambling company
[47:35] Speaker 1: like you could just put.
[47:36] Speaker 2: You take a gross yeah, one percent gross tax on
[47:39] Speaker 2: gambling this country, and you could more than fund the
[47:42] Speaker 2: lost revenue for TV for the next decade. Say okay,
[47:46] Speaker 2: we're gonna give you ten years worth of certainty and
[47:49] Speaker 2: in that time, go find another, go find other advertisers.
[47:52] Speaker 2: I'm sure they could do that, and they probably they
[47:54] Speaker 2: probably love that, right, they're not having to deal with
[47:56] Speaker 2: all the complaints about gambling ads from from families. And
[48:00] Speaker 2: you could also fund things like community sport. I really
[48:03] Speaker 2: take exception to some of the biggest sports in this
[48:07] Speaker 2: country who now don't just accept gambling advertising. They're actually
[48:12] Speaker 2: getting a kickback, so they're getting a cut of betts
[48:15] Speaker 2: placed on say the NRL and the AFL, So they've
[48:18] Speaker 2: integrated gambling into their business model essentially, and I think
[48:24] Speaker 2: that creates really perverse outcomes where you have the heads
[48:27] Speaker 2: of these sports essentially lobbying on behalf of gambling companies
[48:31] Speaker 2: because they're now getting a cut of it. But you know,
[48:35] Speaker 2: eighty percent of their fans don't like it, they don't
[48:37] Speaker 2: want to be part of their sport. And so the
[48:41] Speaker 2: Murphy Report is something a lot of people would have
[48:46] Speaker 2: heard of three years ago. Now, a Lower House committee
[48:52] Speaker 2: so you've got Labor Libs Independence looked at the harms
[48:56] Speaker 2: of online gambling and they recommended a raised in bound
[49:00] Speaker 2: all gambling ads, over three years of banning on inducements,
[49:03] Speaker 2: setting up a national regulator because it's you know, all
[49:06] Speaker 2: these gambling companies are currently set up in the NT
[49:09] Speaker 2: for tax reasons. Yeah, and just the loosest regulation. So
[49:13] Speaker 2: you know, think of how big the gambling industry is
[49:16] Speaker 2: and as far as we know, the anti regulator has
[49:19] Speaker 2: no full time staff. Serious, so very loose. So you
[49:26] Speaker 2: know that that committee was unanimous, which is very rare
[49:31] Speaker 2: in politics, like that is a big thing to get
[49:34] Speaker 2: every party to say, yeah, this is the way we're
[49:36] Speaker 2: going to fix this issue. And so I just keep
[49:38] Speaker 2: going back to that and saying one of the things
[49:40] Speaker 2: that said is we have to break this link between
[49:43] Speaker 2: gambling and sport because we risk forgetting what sport's actually
[49:48] Speaker 2: for in this country and just turning it into a
[49:50] Speaker 2: way to flog gambling products. So I totally get the
[49:54] Speaker 2: argument around the remmercial TV. You know some of the
[49:59] Speaker 2: I'm not as athetic to some of the sports. I
[50:01] Speaker 2: think if they wanted to prioritize community sport and women's
[50:04] Speaker 2: sport they could do that, but I get the argument
[50:09] Speaker 2: from TV and I think there's ways to ways to
[50:11] Speaker 2: solve that. Unfortunately, what we've seen from particularly the Prime Minister,
[50:14] Speaker 2: and maybe this comes back to your what we were
[50:16] Speaker 2: talking about earlier, with this sort of party discipline. The
[50:20] Speaker 2: PM is so out of step with what I've heard
[50:23] Speaker 2: from people in the Labor Party and certainly what i've
[50:26] Speaker 2: heard from people who will come up to me and
[50:27] Speaker 2: be like, I'm a Labor member. Keep pushing them hard
[50:30] Speaker 2: on gambling. You know they're not doing the right thing.
[50:33] Speaker 2: He's essentially made this call that three gambling ads per
[50:37] Speaker 2: hour is fine for kids to watch. No one else
[50:40] Speaker 2: seems to think that's okay. The only we just had
[50:42] Speaker 2: this two day inquiry. The only other place that's ever
[50:47] Speaker 2: been said is straight from the peak lobby for the
[50:51] Speaker 2: gambling companies. And so unfortunately, you know, the PM's decided
[50:56] Speaker 2: he's not going to implement evidence based policy, and everyone's
[50:59] Speaker 2: kind of in the parties falling in behind them in
[51:01] Speaker 2: a way. But there's deep concerns obviously amongst the Independence,
[51:05] Speaker 2: but I think the Coalition is now also keen to
[51:08] Speaker 2: see them go go further and find ways to sort
[51:12] Speaker 2: of shore up revenue for free TV.
[51:15] Speaker 1: You've also been talking and this is a very interesting
[51:18] Speaker 1: one considering you know what's going on in the world
[51:20] Speaker 1: at the moment. A gas tax. You've been pretty strong
[51:25] Speaker 1: with that, gas and resources and multinational companies. Twenty five
[51:29] Speaker 1: percent tax on gas exports? Is that right?
[51:33] Speaker 2: For me? It comes back to the question what are
[51:35] Speaker 2: our natural resources for?
[51:37] Speaker 1: Because I want to get into that philosophical position.
[51:40] Speaker 2: So and who do they?
[51:42] Speaker 1: Who do they belong to?
[51:43] Speaker 2: Do they belong to? Well?
[51:43] Speaker 1: Who do that? Who do you think they belong to them?
[51:46] Speaker 2: Or who do you?
[51:46] Speaker 1: What do your constituency? What do they think?
[51:50] Speaker 2: I think? And most people I speak to believe that
[51:54] Speaker 2: they belong to all of us. They belong to the nation.
[51:57] Speaker 2: And the way that we've treated them is not like
[52:04] Speaker 2: we truly believe they belong to us. We've allowed big
[52:08] Speaker 2: multinationals to export them, make extraordinary profits and leave us
[52:16] Speaker 2: with the trillion dollars of national debt. Where we look
[52:18] Speaker 2: at Norway and they've got a three trillion dollars sovereign wealth.
[52:21] Speaker 1: Fund and they've nationalized a lot of their assets, so.
[52:24] Speaker 2: They've got yet they've they had the foresight back in
[52:26] Speaker 2: the sixties to say yeah, we've got to take some
[52:28] Speaker 2: government ownership, we're actually going to invest in this industry.
[52:31] Speaker 2: We haven't done that. Yes, it's different, but the principle
[52:35] Speaker 2: is the same. And you know, given that minderstanding is,
[52:39] Speaker 2: of all the gas that's been exported from this country,
[52:42] Speaker 2: just over fifty percent has been totally royalty free so far,
[52:45] Speaker 2: and so I really see a twenty five percent gas
[52:47] Speaker 2: export tax as one a way to get a fair
[52:50] Speaker 2: return on the export of Australian gas. Two, very hard
[52:56] Speaker 2: to game. You know, a lot of these companies, because
[52:59] Speaker 2: they're multinationals, are very good at profit shifting and you know,
[53:03] Speaker 2: selling to a parent company who they're on cells or
[53:06] Speaker 2: claiming all sorts of deductions, payments and loans to other
[53:12] Speaker 2: entities that reduce their taxible income. So it's hard to gain.
[53:15] Speaker 2: And thirdly, it would reduce the price of gas in
[53:18] Speaker 2: this country, one of the biggest gas exports in the world.
[53:21] Speaker 2: And people will see in the news every six months
[53:24] Speaker 2: or so, oh we've got a gas shortage.
[53:27] Speaker 1: Well not in West Australia, the rest of the country.
[53:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, we don't have a gas gas supply problem,
[53:35] Speaker 2: We've got a gas export problem. We just export so
[53:37] Speaker 2: much of the stuff that we don't have enough here
[53:39] Speaker 2: and we haven't had the foresight as you said, wa
[53:42] Speaker 2: you know West Coast reservation policy. We haven't had that
[53:46] Speaker 2: leadership over the last twenty years here on the East Coast.
[53:49] Speaker 2: So we're paying international prices for our own gas. That
[53:51] Speaker 2: means that electricity is more expensive because gas is a
[53:55] Speaker 2: small but really important component of the firming.
[53:58] Speaker 1: When there's not enough, they up the gas to produce
[54:01] Speaker 1: electricity yest plants.
[54:02] Speaker 2: And so a twenty five percent gas expert tax would
[54:04] Speaker 2: reduce the price of gas for ossie manufacturers, businesses, households.
[54:09] Speaker 2: I think that's a great thing and it would bring
[54:11] Speaker 2: down the cost of electricity, which you know, I talked
[54:13] Speaker 2: to every small business I talked to saying, you know,
[54:17] Speaker 2: price of electricity is a real factor for us.
[54:20] Speaker 1: And when it comes to small business And I don't
[54:23] Speaker 1: know if you're talking to an outside of your state
[54:25] Speaker 1: or you're outside of your territory of the act I'm
[54:27] Speaker 1: talking about, but small businesses are doing it tough in
[54:31] Speaker 1: Australia right now. I mean, I don't care who I
[54:34] Speaker 1: talk to, but everyone's telling me the same stuff and
[54:37] Speaker 1: it is and it's really around what's starting to be
[54:40] Speaker 1: now that their customers are buying less because everybody's being
[54:43] Speaker 1: at the cost of living for everybody has gone up.
[54:46] Speaker 1: But it was up until about two three months ago,
[54:49] Speaker 1: mostly around my costs. My costs are running my business.
[54:52] Speaker 1: My small business had just kept going up and up
[54:54] Speaker 1: and up and up, and that haven't stopped. What is
[54:57] Speaker 1: someone like Where can someone like you and in the
[55:00] Speaker 1: in the Senate have a positive impact on helping out
[55:05] Speaker 1: small business owners in this country?
[55:09] Speaker 2: I mean been based on the Act in Canberra, I
[55:13] Speaker 2: think is a huge advantage because you get to not
[55:15] Speaker 2: only speak to constituents, but then also a lot of
[55:19] Speaker 2: the peak bodies are spending a lot of time in
[55:20] Speaker 2: Parliament House for example, so you know it was at
[55:24] Speaker 2: an event this morning them. I think one of the
[55:29] Speaker 2: things we don't talk about enough is that in times
[55:32] Speaker 2: like this, small business owners are getting smashed twice. They're
[55:36] Speaker 2: Australians who have families and have costs, and their mortgage
[55:40] Speaker 2: has gone up, their petrol's gone up, and then in
[55:44] Speaker 2: their small business their inputs have gone up, and they're
[55:48] Speaker 2: dealing with other Australians whose costs have gone up, and
[55:51] Speaker 2: so they want to buy less, and so they're in
[55:53] Speaker 2: this position where the squeeze total squeeze, where they desperately
[55:57] Speaker 2: not wanting to pass on costs. But you know a
[56:00] Speaker 2: lot of them are not getting much out of their
[56:02] Speaker 2: business and so they have to put up those those costs,
[56:05] Speaker 2: and so it has been an incredibly tough tough time
[56:08] Speaker 2: for them. The things that my team and I've really
[56:11] Speaker 2: focused on over the last four years, a big one
[56:15] Speaker 2: has been around procurement. It doesn't sound very sexy to
[56:20] Speaker 2: most people.
[56:21] Speaker 1: The government procure Yeah, government procurement.
[56:23] Speaker 2: So the government spends you know, seventy to one hundred
[56:25] Speaker 2: billion dollars every year.
[56:27] Speaker 1: On supply chain, so getting someone to deliver coffee cups
[56:32] Speaker 1: or something like whatever.
[56:33] Speaker 2: It is everything so from big defense projects to IT services,
[56:38] Speaker 2: cybersecurity AI to coffee cups and stationary and you know
[56:43] Speaker 2: one we've been dealing with recently is desks. Yeah, you know,
[56:46] Speaker 2: more and more of these companies that get contracts to
[56:52] Speaker 2: outfit to do the fit outs for government officers importing
[56:56] Speaker 2: desks from I suppose, I imagine China all sorts of
[57:00] Speaker 2: stuff in undercutting the Australians. So one example, so procurement
[57:04] Speaker 2: really trying to have the government have a lens over
[57:07] Speaker 2: their procurement where they're backing Australian companies. The government's whole
[57:12] Speaker 2: focus has been on you're an Australian company, and up
[57:18] Speaker 2: till July last year, the only test of being an
[57:22] Speaker 2: Australian company was do you have an ABN. I mean,
[57:25] Speaker 2: you know, every company that operates in this country has
[57:28] Speaker 2: an ABEN.
[57:29] Speaker 1: You can't operate with that one exactly, but you don't
[57:31] Speaker 1: have to be Australian exactly.
[57:34] Speaker 2: And so finally they've actually put some more detail around
[57:37] Speaker 2: what is an Australian company in terms of you know,
[57:40] Speaker 2: fifty one percent based here, et cetera. One of the
[57:44] Speaker 2: things I've been pushing them hard on is, rather than
[57:47] Speaker 2: just going, well, what's the best value for money, what's
[57:50] Speaker 2: the retained economic benefit? Because clearly, if you're if you're
[57:55] Speaker 2: procuring something from a small business that's based in canber
[57:59] Speaker 2: or Sydney, all their staff live here, they're paying taxes here,
[58:04] Speaker 2: they're doing you know, probably R and D here, they're
[58:07] Speaker 2: backing other businesses, there's a huge amount of retained economic benefit.
[58:10] Speaker 2: Then if I give that to a multinational company that
[58:13] Speaker 2: may have a few staff here, but profits are shipped
[58:16] Speaker 2: overseas and so there's a genuine opportunity there. And I
[58:21] Speaker 2: hear from so many Australian businesses who tell me it's
[58:25] Speaker 2: actually easier to sell to the Canadian government or the
[58:28] Speaker 2: UK government and the Australian government. Wow, that's a huge problem.
[58:31] Speaker 2: And to the government's credit, Minister Katie Gallaher has been
[58:34] Speaker 2: working on this. They're making some changes. I still just
[58:37] Speaker 2: think there's so much opportunity there for small business in
[58:39] Speaker 2: this country to really try and one give them a
[58:43] Speaker 2: foot in the door, but then really grow these businesses,
[58:45] Speaker 2: Like that's a huge chunk of money. One of the
[58:49] Speaker 2: other things again not that probably not that sexy, but
[58:54] Speaker 2: is the definition of Australian business. There's like fifteen or
[58:56] Speaker 2: twenty different definitions. It's so confused for companies to navigate,
[59:02] Speaker 2: and so really trying to simplify things around definitions, things
[59:06] Speaker 2: around the awards system. You know, I sit at Senate Estimate,
[59:09] Speaker 2: which is when all the departments appear before the Senate
[59:11] Speaker 2: and you get to ask them questions. You know, if
[59:14] Speaker 2: the Department of Workplace Relations is having payroll issues, they're
[59:20] Speaker 2: underpaying people, overpaying people, it's this big debacle. Then they're
[59:24] Speaker 2: paying external contractors consultants to come in and fix the issue,
[59:28] Speaker 2: Like how are you meant to do it a small business?
[59:30] Speaker 2: You don't have an HR team and you know you're
[59:33] Speaker 2: doing it yourself. And so I think simplicity of the awards.
[59:38] Speaker 2: We hear a lot of talk about cutting red tape.
[59:43] Speaker 2: I'd love to see us actually factoring small businesses into
[59:47] Speaker 2: regulation and laws before we make them and saying, you know,
[59:51] Speaker 2: this regulation makes sense, but if you're a small business,
[59:53] Speaker 2: you probably don't have the sources to comply. So let's
[59:56] Speaker 2: find a different way to do that. And that was
[59:59] Speaker 2: you know, during the Industrial Reform in the last parliament,
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: that was a big sort of part of what I
[1:00:04] Speaker 2: tried to push is to actually cut out a whole
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: bunch of small businesses from some of the other regulations
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: that we were coming in.
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: Do you think we're becoming a regulated do you think?
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: I mean, I understand that the thought process and the
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: hypothesis around a regulation, like you know, know your client,
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: you know all there's some amlefs, anti money laundering stuff.
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: I get it, I get one, und get it, But
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: where it comes a whole ton of regulatory stuff and
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: then a whole ton of compliance things you have to do,
[1:00:40] Speaker 1: and it just makes a lot of people's margins diminish.
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: And all the only people who can sort of survive
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: in those enviroums, and I'm one of them who's fortunate
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: enough to be able to, is that we outsurvive all
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: the smaller competitors and they just all disappear. And as
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: a result that we just get bigger and bigger and bigger,
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: and that allows us to dictate pricing, and it gives
[1:01:01] Speaker 1: us more power. And the regulatory environment, which is well intended,
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: actually has this negative effect on you know, proper competition.
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: The thing I hear from small businesses is that it's
[1:01:15] Speaker 2: death by a thousand carts. Yeah, you know, every one
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: little added thing, whether it's you know, anti money, wandering
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: checks or whatever, in and of itself is fine, but
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: then you start to layer them up becomes a very
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: big problem.
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: A good example is that if I pay you weekly
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: and now I'm going to I'm going to take your
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: souper out weekly. I mean, I get it, because some
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: people probably routing the system and not doing it for
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: six months or a year, or whatever the or never.
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: But most businesses are pretty good, but they just have
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: to do it quarterly but now weekly. That's just as
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: it's a big it's a big deal.
[1:01:48] Speaker 2: It's a big it's a big change. And administratively yes,
[1:01:52] Speaker 2: and I think that's in my experience often not a
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: big enough consideration when these sorts of things are going
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: through is what is the actual impact on small business?
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: And there seems to be an attitude while they just
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: need to wear this, whereas I think something we should
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: be weighing up. I'm not one of these people that
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: is out there just bashing or regulation. I think in
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: some ways we totally underregulate some industries in this country.
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: I mean you take airlines for example, this is a
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: highly concentrated market, basically a duopoly. Totally do it and
[1:02:28] Speaker 2: it's kind of this just hands off will allow them
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: to give us, you know, rubbish customer service. He had
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: jet sized thing of charging people to put.
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: A luggage at the top that was today announced. I
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: saw that and so there's you know, seventy five dollars.
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: There's a real hesitancy to actually put I think reasonable
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: expectations around serving your customer and providing good service in
[1:02:53] Speaker 2: markets that are very concentrating, we don't have the competition
[1:02:56] Speaker 2: that would usually keep those things in check. And then
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: a heap of regulation on small businesses where you say, well,
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: they don't actually have the same resources, and it is
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: it is a lot more competitive. So I really do
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: think it is a balancing act the government. You know, again,
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: to Jim Chalmer's credit, he's talked a lot about trying
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: to reduce some of the regulatory burden, but.
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: It's coming out that other department. So that's the problem.
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: I mean, he's a treasurer, but it's coming all adds up.
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: And I'll give you one example, which is I found
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: very interesting the other day. Someone said to me the
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: other day when they talked about this pay day super
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: they said to me, basically, super is a tax on
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: a business. A business has to pay this superinnuation for
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: the worker, which is fine, everybody's happy with it, but
[1:03:47] Speaker 1: it basically is a tax. I'm collecting tax for the government,
[1:03:50] Speaker 1: putting it away into a into a industry fund or
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: wherever it goes to make sure that when that person retires,
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: a person is properly superinnuat did on the day of
[1:04:00] Speaker 1: the turn sixty five, so the government doesn't have to
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: put their hand in their pocket. So basically, I'm collecting
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: your tax for you, but not need to have to
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: collect the tax for you. I have to now account
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: for it, and I used to be able to do
[1:04:10] Speaker 1: it quarterly. Now I've got to do it weekly. So
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: I'm now actually become a tax agent for the government.
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: The same as collecting the GST. I'm collecting your tax,
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: and it's like an outsourcing by government to small business owners.
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: I'm not blowing up about the the GST. I'm not
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: blowing up about superinnovation as a concept. I get it, it
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: makes sense. But what I do find difficult is the
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: government has sort of outsourced that to small business owners
[1:04:37] Speaker 1: and they got to wear the administrative cost and there
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: is a lot. I mean, like you've got to employ
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: a bookkeep, you got to have an accountant, you've got
[1:04:43] Speaker 1: to have your banking. Now, what happens if people don't
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: pay me for three months? I'm one of those businesses.
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: I've had to compete with the bigger business. So I
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: give you ninety day terms, but I've got but I've
[1:04:55] Speaker 1: got a payment wages now, and so I've got a
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: fund there. So now I've got to have relationships with
[1:04:59] Speaker 1: my bank. I probably have to borrow money to fund
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: that process these things. Where does this get debated?
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: There is some debate over it. Someone like a Legraspender
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: has been.
[1:05:15] Speaker 1: Pushing really hard do a good job again.
[1:05:17] Speaker 2: Through government procurement that people, you know, these big firms
[1:05:21] Speaker 2: that pick up big contracts who then subcontract part of it.
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: They have to actually pay small businesses within thirty days.
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: That seems very reasonable if they're copying the money from
[1:05:30] Speaker 2: the government totally, So you know, that's one tiny part
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: of that. I do think there's opportunity for the government
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: to have more incentives to actually help small businesses invest
[1:05:41] Speaker 2: in the technology that can help with some of these problems.
[1:05:43] Speaker 2: Clearly at this point in time with AI where there
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: are opportunities, but all of these things have upfront costs
[1:05:50] Speaker 2: for capital costs for businesses to upgrade it, systems, et cetera.
[1:05:56] Speaker 2: And I think this is an area where I just
[1:05:58] Speaker 2: haven't seen enough of innovation and forward thinking where there's incentives.
[1:06:03] Speaker 2: I know, a couple of years ago it was fascical
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: there was an incentive for digitization and it was legislated.
[1:06:11] Speaker 2: I think like a few days or a week before
[1:06:14] Speaker 2: it expired and you're not serious about helping small businesses?
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: Was that under Morrison? Do you with that about twenty eighteen.
[1:06:25] Speaker 2: Two or three? I think it was only like a
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: legacy program that had rolled over a few times.
[1:06:29] Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, because I was a chair of
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: the Inquiry into Digitization Austrained Businesses when Freedenberg was around.
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: I handed up my report and we got some budget allocation.
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: But then it went back to the Department of Industry,
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: which I think Sinadinis might have been might have been
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: around those days, I can't remember as the minister, and
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: but then it got lost and I never saw the
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: report result in anything. Maybe it got resurrected a couple
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: of years later.
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: I mean, how do you how do you think we
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: should be balancing those things where you know there's an
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: expectation from Australians or consumers, but then regulation gets made
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: that small businesses have to comply with it.
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: That's my sound a bit radical, David, But like you
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: know what I'd love to see.
[1:07:14] Speaker 2: I'd love to.
[1:07:15] Speaker 1: See a shadow Parliament or shadow not senator, Lower House,
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: but like some other thing where where all the issues
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: were listed on a website somewhere, and you all of
[1:07:32] Speaker 1: us got an allocation of a number, a number allo
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: caedis or some sort of pin which I only I knew,
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: and then I knew it because I'm in the ward
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: of so and so, and I live in this house
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: and that's my dress, and that's why I'm registering an
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: electoral commission role and that I could vote on it.
[1:07:53] Speaker 1: And now I don't have to vote on it, but
[1:07:54] Speaker 1: I can vote on every issue that you guys talk about.
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: So every issue guys talking about gets posted onto this page.
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: It's sort of like a digital parliament that all of
[1:08:03] Speaker 1: us get to see.
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: Like a direct direct democracy.
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, a proper democracy, and where like the old day's
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: original days of democracy was done in the pit and
[1:08:12] Speaker 1: everything was arguing every day, and if you had an
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: interest in it, you turned up, you know, Socratic style.
[1:08:17] Speaker 1: You went there Socrates argument and you major argument. If
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: you don't go there, and you've got nothing to complain about.
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: So I'd like to put the power back in our hands.
[1:08:28] Speaker 1: So we have nothing to complain about. But if we
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: have something we feel really strongly about, then we have
[1:08:34] Speaker 1: the opportunity and talk about it, or not talk about it,
[1:08:36] Speaker 1: but say something and this all gets you can use
[1:08:39] Speaker 1: AI to collid everything. It could all then go back
[1:08:42] Speaker 1: to the Senate Inquiry Committee that's involved. It could go
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: back to the Minister, it could go back to whoever
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: it is, and then you have to answer it, you
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: have to resolve. I'd love to see I'd like to
[1:08:53] Speaker 1: see a proper form of democracy, because the problem is
[1:08:55] Speaker 1: today is that I'll vote for you and your seat
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: in Canberra and on the today's issues and the current issues,
[1:09:03] Speaker 1: and then one year later a whole set of new
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: issues comes up that I never ever thought it would
[1:09:09] Speaker 1: ever happen. And you know I can't see into the future,
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: nor can you. And then but because I vote for you,
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: you've got my mandate. You are now influencing the outcome
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: of this new set of issues which I've never even
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: thought about. And I think democracy, if we've got a
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: proper democracy. I don't think anyone in the world does this,
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: but if we had a proper democracy, democracy, we should
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: at least maybe start and you can develop this over time,
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: but just make this available because everyone's on the insend
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: all day. I'm going to be great. If I was
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: getting pinged, I might just say, look these are ten
[1:09:42] Speaker 1: things I'm interested in. I'm interested in gambling, gas tax,
[1:09:45] Speaker 1: and immigration, just making things up. Anything that comes up
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: on this page, I want to know about it, and
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: I want the opportunity to say something about it, and you.
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: Hold it to a vote. Yeah, I mean, I think
[1:09:58] Speaker 2: finding ways to get more people idea a great thing,
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: because I mean, the thing one of the things I'm
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: concerned about is this sort of polarization where we start
[1:10:13] Speaker 2: to see people just fall into different camps and or
[1:10:15] Speaker 2: division division.
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: You either with me or you're against exactly.
[1:10:19] Speaker 2: And you know, I think one of the things that
[1:10:23] Speaker 2: so many of us cherish as Australians is that we're
[1:10:28] Speaker 2: firstly Australian and then some distance down there we have
[1:10:32] Speaker 2: a political leaning or a party or an independent.
[1:10:36] Speaker 1: Or there was some difference down there, but it's largely
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: world together.
[1:10:40] Speaker 2: And the thing, the thing I've seen when you can
[1:10:42] Speaker 2: actually get people together and talk about things is that
[1:10:46] Speaker 2: we agree on so much stuff. Yeah, there's there's there's
[1:10:49] Speaker 2: a disagreement, and those differences are really important, but there
[1:10:52] Speaker 2: is so much that we actually agree on, and I
[1:10:55] Speaker 2: think we kind of lose that in our current political
[1:10:59] Speaker 2: debate with things are so fraught and people are picking
[1:11:03] Speaker 2: one or two wedge issues to just sort of bash
[1:11:07] Speaker 2: each other rather than saying, well, actually, we all largely
[1:11:11] Speaker 2: agree on where we want to go to. We may
[1:11:13] Speaker 2: have different ways of getting there, and then let's let's
[1:11:15] Speaker 2: work that out, Like how do we balance some of
[1:11:18] Speaker 2: those competing priorities. And I think, yeah, if you had
[1:11:21] Speaker 2: more more Australians feeling like they had a bit more
[1:11:24] Speaker 2: of a stake in the game, and yeah, I guess
[1:11:28] Speaker 2: as an independent, that's a big part of what I
[1:11:31] Speaker 2: try and do is say I work for you, like
[1:11:34] Speaker 2: I really view that as my job. I work for
[1:11:36] Speaker 2: people in the APE.
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: That's an important that's a really really important differentiated David.
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: Do you think the major parties work for the party
[1:11:47] Speaker 1: or they work for the people then voted them into
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: the representing that particular ward wherever it is that they
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: come from, Because you made your position clear, but the
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: major Party.
[1:11:58] Speaker 2: I don't pretend to understand the the complexity of coming
[1:12:03] Speaker 2: up through a party. From what I've seen, there are
[1:12:06] Speaker 2: some exceptionable exceptional humans in there who care deeply, wh
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: who love this place, are in there for the right reasons,
[1:12:14] Speaker 2: want to make a difference and I often hamstrung by
[1:12:21] Speaker 2: the party line. I think some would say, well, that's
[1:12:24] Speaker 2: just one of the trade offs. But then when you're
[1:12:27] Speaker 2: in government you can actually do do good things. And
[1:12:30] Speaker 2: you know, sure, I think people can can debate that,
[1:12:34] Speaker 2: but I think it's a real mix of people who
[1:12:38] Speaker 2: clearly want to make a difference and want to stand
[1:12:40] Speaker 2: up on issues and others who sort of the play
[1:12:45] Speaker 2: the game are good at Again, I don't really know
[1:12:50] Speaker 2: how it works, like getting the numbers, I guess to
[1:12:52] Speaker 2: get into a position to be elected, and then once
[1:12:54] Speaker 2: you party and yeah, it didn't take take me long
[1:13:00] Speaker 2: to realize that this place isn't a meritocracy. Yeah, that's
[1:13:03] Speaker 2: actually not how things work in here. And you know,
[1:13:08] Speaker 2: I think naively from coming from support, I thought like
[1:13:14] Speaker 2: everyone on the same team is like you're together. You've
[1:13:17] Speaker 2: got differences, but like we're in this together. Yeah, and
[1:13:20] Speaker 2: then you realize, like within the parties people there's a
[1:13:22] Speaker 2: bunch of people who don't like each other, and there's
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: actually they spend a lot of time trying to sort
[1:13:29] Speaker 2: out those differences and you know, get ahead and get
[1:13:34] Speaker 2: into a position or get you onto the front bench
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: or whatever it might be. And sure, that's that's the system.
[1:13:41] Speaker 2: I'm very grateful not to be not to be part
[1:13:43] Speaker 2: of that at the moment.
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: Because I often wonnered about people like yourself. But did
[1:13:48] Speaker 1: you have a captain straighter?
[1:13:50] Speaker 2: I did twenty twelve briefly and they got injured.
[1:13:53] Speaker 1: See captain in your nation? Would you think about it?
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: Do weld you ever have any ambition about captaining their
[1:13:58] Speaker 1: country in a leitical sense? I know you'd have to
[1:14:01] Speaker 1: be in a party to do it. I get all that,
[1:14:03] Speaker 1: but you know, because in this country, we vote that.
[1:14:06] Speaker 1: We don't vote prime ministers and or leaders in the
[1:14:08] Speaker 1: party does. But if you ever thought about has that
[1:14:11] Speaker 1: thought ever gone through your mind? Like if I was
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: running the joint We probably don't have anyone really running
[1:14:16] Speaker 1: the job. But if I was the leader of the nation,
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: is there anything you would do this different? Would you
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: do it any different? Would you try to bring everybody together?
[1:14:29] Speaker 2: Oh?
[1:14:30] Speaker 1: You know, I think that's what you do on a
[1:14:33] Speaker 1: footy team.
[1:14:33] Speaker 2: Do a lot. You think most people do a lot
[1:14:36] Speaker 2: different and everyone have their view, but it's not really
[1:14:41] Speaker 2: the way I've thought about it. Like I the thing
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: I think about is how do we actually set up
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: our political system in a way that people can come
[1:14:52] Speaker 2: in here, they can contribute for a while, and then
[1:14:54] Speaker 2: they can go back to what they were doing. And
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: you know, people can genuinely elect someone who they have
[1:15:01] Speaker 2: faith in to go to Canberra for twenty weeks a year,
[1:15:05] Speaker 2: really wrestle with these big issues, consult and make good
[1:15:10] Speaker 2: decisions and think long term. So I don't know, I
[1:15:13] Speaker 2: guess I've thought a lot more about how do we
[1:15:15] Speaker 2: actually introduce some long term thinking into this place. And
[1:15:21] Speaker 2: so I have introduced a bunch of private center's bills
[1:15:23] Speaker 2: which with you know, the current government basically don't will
[1:15:30] Speaker 2: never allow a private members' bill to go anywhere. That's
[1:15:35] Speaker 2: their decision. They just want psycho polity us. Yeah, but
[1:15:40] Speaker 2: using them as a way to say, hey, we can
[1:15:41] Speaker 2: do better. So you know, I've got a bill that
[1:15:44] Speaker 2: would legislate a ten year housing and homelessness plan. As
[1:15:47] Speaker 2: a country, we have no plan when it comes to housing,
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: like no actual plan. Yes, the government has a whole
[1:15:53] Speaker 2: bunch of policies that they say will solve things. I
[1:15:55] Speaker 2: think some of them are good. Clearly they know where
[1:15:58] Speaker 2: near enough given where we're at. But my view is
[1:16:04] Speaker 2: every government's going to have their different ways of getting somewhere,
[1:16:07] Speaker 2: but you at least need to force them to be
[1:16:08] Speaker 2: thinking ten years in the future. I had another bill
[1:16:12] Speaker 2: which would be a Duty of Care to young Australians
[1:16:16] Speaker 2: And so when the government is making big decisions about
[1:16:20] Speaker 2: approving projects, that have to say, well, how is this
[1:16:22] Speaker 2: going to affect you know, our kids, their kids? That's
[1:16:27] Speaker 2: the thing I've I guess I think a lot about
[1:16:29] Speaker 2: and really try and work hard at saying how do
[1:16:32] Speaker 2: we try and change some of the incentives in here
[1:16:35] Speaker 2: and the systems to embed longer term thinking because I
[1:16:38] Speaker 2: don't want to be in there forever. You know, I'm
[1:16:41] Speaker 2: really grateful the opportunity to have it feels really meaningful.
[1:16:43] Speaker 2: At the moment, I'm pushing hard, but some stage I
[1:16:50] Speaker 2: want to go to something else and hopefully have helped
[1:16:55] Speaker 2: contribute to a Parliament that can actually crack on and
[1:16:58] Speaker 2: make some better decisions.
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: The mind Ifa. Are you married family, got a young family?
[1:17:04] Speaker 2: I've got a twenty month old son and due in January?
[1:17:08] Speaker 1: Well, congratulations, And were you a Queenslander originally.
[1:17:12] Speaker 2: That so finished finished school in Brazee?
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: So would you consider yourself or Camberan?
[1:17:19] Speaker 2: Well, I mean only I only spent three years in Brizzy,
[1:17:24] Speaker 2: but you know, go for the Morons in the state
[1:17:27] Speaker 2: of origin, and then spent seven years.
[1:17:29] Speaker 1: And that's where I was going, by the way.
[1:17:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, I spent seven years in Perth where I met Emma.
[1:17:34] Speaker 2: We got married in twenty ten and then moved to
[1:17:39] Speaker 2: camber in twenty twelve and love Camberra. I have honestly
[1:17:43] Speaker 2: fallen in love with that place. That it's I think,
[1:17:47] Speaker 2: such a great place to live because nature, the Moran
[1:17:50] Speaker 2: Bridgie River is I.
[1:17:52] Speaker 1: Was going to ask you about a special place I'm
[1:17:54] Speaker 1: dying to know. I mean, La, what's a lake going
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: to work in the mothership though? La? You know it's
[1:18:01] Speaker 1: twenty weeks of the year. Do you bump into Pauline
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: or were meant to like do you walk down the corridor?
[1:18:05] Speaker 1: You say you see people you're having arguments with. I mean,
[1:18:08] Speaker 1: how's it work?
[1:18:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, you see everyone, and you know it's again, like,
[1:18:14] Speaker 2: what do you say that when I'm I think I'm
[1:18:17] Speaker 2: the act reps. I think have a very different experience
[1:18:21] Speaker 2: because we we go home every night and sleep in
[1:18:23] Speaker 2: our own bed. You can have you can have a
[1:18:25] Speaker 2: big awful day and then you're home and you can
[1:18:28] Speaker 2: go for a wal unload your dog in the dark,
[1:18:30] Speaker 2: and you know, cash up with your family and go
[1:18:33] Speaker 2: to bed, whereas others obviously don't. And but yeah, you
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: And honestly, that's one of the things I love is
[1:18:41] Speaker 2: is interacting with all these people that you obviously don't
[1:18:45] Speaker 2: agree with everything, them on everything, but you work with
[1:18:49] Speaker 2: them on stuff you agree on. And you know, I
[1:18:52] Speaker 2: think one of the things, one of the things I've
[1:18:54] Speaker 2: it's taken a bit to actually get used to after
[1:18:58] Speaker 2: so long a professional sport where you know you'll go
[1:19:01] Speaker 2: out there and you genuinely want to smash your opponents.
[1:19:06] Speaker 2: Well you did. Sometimes you want to, you want to
[1:19:09] Speaker 2: hurt them. You want to hurt them. Then after the
[1:19:12] Speaker 2: game chatting, you might have a beer in the change
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: room about their family.
[1:19:19] Speaker 1: So is it the same in politics, It's really not.
[1:19:23] Speaker 1: I still hate them after Well, you.
[1:19:24] Speaker 2: Know, the thing I've found is, you know, if if
[1:19:27] Speaker 2: stuff happens in this and it gets very huge in
[1:19:29] Speaker 2: the Senate, doesn't as you can imagine the thing.
[1:19:32] Speaker 1: I've never really watched that closer.
[1:19:33] Speaker 2: But you're not missing much, Mark.
[1:19:35] Speaker 1: I know. One of the reasons, because a lot of
[1:19:36] Speaker 1: jobs is knowing has hardly when there Yeah, exactly, and
[1:19:39] Speaker 1: and and the Senate of course is the red room.
[1:19:41] Speaker 1: That's how I know it's the red color. But is
[1:19:44] Speaker 1: it because people like you don't get on with people,
[1:19:50] Speaker 1: or is it because it's boring? I mean, what's the
[1:19:52] Speaker 1: deal why you don't want to be like after a
[1:19:55] Speaker 1: footy game ago from shake hands and give rug.
[1:19:57] Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just I think part of it's
[1:19:59] Speaker 2: maybe a culture thing where if you've just not know
[1:20:04] Speaker 2: if you well, this is I think this is part
[1:20:07] Speaker 2: of the tension for me, is that I can have
[1:20:09] Speaker 2: someone absolutely spray me in the Senate get personal. I'm
[1:20:12] Speaker 2: very happy to walk out and havevy on to them
[1:20:15] Speaker 2: as if like nothing really happened, Like yeah, that's that's
[1:20:19] Speaker 2: it's a different thing, you know, that's that's in the
[1:20:21] Speaker 2: Senate verse. We're just humans, where I feel like some
[1:20:24] Speaker 2: of my colleagues, you know, don't feel it that way.
[1:20:29] Speaker 2: And it's kind of this you hold a grudge and
[1:20:31] Speaker 2: you don't like someone, and I don't know, I think
[1:20:34] Speaker 2: there's there's opportunity there to actually just let what happens
[1:20:39] Speaker 2: in the Senate stay in the Senate and we can
[1:20:42] Speaker 2: interact as humans outside of that that being said, there
[1:20:46] Speaker 2: are so many people that get on really well with
[1:20:47] Speaker 2: in all the in all the parties, and as I
[1:20:50] Speaker 2: said earlier, one of the tragedies of austral politics is
[1:20:54] Speaker 2: that people don't actually see that there's a lot of
[1:20:56] Speaker 2: good faith work that happens cross party lines, with people
[1:21:00] Speaker 2: genuinely working to solve some of these big and some
[1:21:03] Speaker 2: of these really small problems that affect a small number
[1:21:06] Speaker 2: of people, but in a meaningful way. And every now
[1:21:10] Speaker 2: and then the Senate does do something that I think
[1:21:14] Speaker 2: is great where you can actually drop your party allegiance
[1:21:18] Speaker 2: and just do something together.
[1:21:20] Speaker 1: Well, David, send it to David Pocock. I really appreciated
[1:21:23] Speaker 1: this conversation. Actually I learned a lot about how things
[1:21:25] Speaker 1: work down there. But I think it's what I have
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: learned about you is is that it's sort of apart
[1:21:33] Speaker 1: from you feeling very grateful for being in this country
[1:21:35] Speaker 1: and having been brought up in this country, which is
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: like a too rare a thing for all of us
[1:21:44] Speaker 1: to be reminded of, but also as you're just your
[1:21:47] Speaker 1: reasonableness and whether it's come from sport or whatever, hey,
[1:21:50] Speaker 1: you've got brought up. I don't know where the deal is,
[1:21:51] Speaker 1: but just being reasonable as a politician. That's really important
[1:21:55] Speaker 1: for Australians to hear that. And so I appreciate that.
[1:21:57] Speaker 1: I appreciate your sincerity and good on you on the
[1:22:00] Speaker 1: widow's text mate, because I'm pretty sure by the time
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: this guy's there that you would have solved the problem.
[1:22:04] Speaker 2: Mate, I hope. So, yeah, thank you. I mean, I
[1:22:07] Speaker 2: genuinely think everyone who lives in Australia we have won
[1:22:10] Speaker 2: the life lottery. Yeah.
[1:22:13] Speaker 1: It takes people like you who don't come, who weren't
[1:22:15] Speaker 1: born here, by the way, you know, it takes people
[1:22:18] Speaker 1: like you to actually appreciate that because a lot of
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: us were born here and it's always been the same.
[1:22:24] Speaker 1: We don't realize what it could have been or what
[1:22:26] Speaker 1: it is in other places. You do. And I think
[1:22:29] Speaker 1: that's a sort of a legacy that you're being born
[1:22:31] Speaker 1: with and you're likely to have.
[1:22:32] Speaker 2: Well thank you, thanks having me, and thanks for the
[1:22:34] Speaker 2: conversations you're having.
[1:22:35] Speaker 1: Well done, jeers, Thank you

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