Rejecting Pauline Hanson’s cultural vandalism; fighting for democracy with Antoinette Lattouf

In this first episode, Sarah shares her thoughts on the rise of One Nation and Pauline Hanson’s laundry list of the things she doesn’t like about Australia. 

She then sits down for a conversation with special guest Antoinette Latouf and the tables are turned, the politician is interviewing the journalist. Together they chat about the media, pushing for change and fighting for democracy at a time others are trying to destroy it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Sarah Hanson Young Podcast. A politician doing a podcast? I know it sounds a bit weird, but let me tell you why I'm doing it. So many people are hurting, and the systems that are meant to help us look after each other just aren't working. And there's some people who are really benefiting from all of this. It's the vested interests and the billionaires. The vested interests don't want us to be active, and they certainly don't want us holding power to account. Some people want you to believe that politics can't be fixed, that you've got to burn the place down. Well, I disagree. The most powerful thing that we can do right now is not bow out and tap the mat. I don't want to burn the place down. I want to renovate it. I think we need to make politics a force for good. And you do that by having good conversations, calling out the bullshit when you see it, and standing up and holding power to account. So every single week, this podcast is where we can sit down and do that together. I'm kicking things off with what I'm calling my shy report or not so shy report, a quick solo segment before each episode's main conversation, where I share my take on the issues I feel most passionately about each week. This week, my not so shy report is on Pauline Hansen and One Nation. Surprise, surprise. But I just can't not do it because we've been back in Parliament in this last uh week or so. And it's been the first time I saw Pauline Hansen in the flesh since her horror press club address a few weeks ago. You know, the one where she attacked most of the country. She laid into migrants, into indigenous people, she attacked the journalists in the room, she uh had this laundry list of all the things that are wrong uh with Australia that she doesn't like. And she basically flooded the zone with hate. Now, one of the things that she said, of course, uh is that she wanted Australia to be uh monocultural, not multicultural as a society. And so, of course, um this week uh there's been a lot of debate here in the parliament about what she even meant by that. What does monocultural mean? What does multiculturalism mean? Which politicians on the other sides of the of the house, you know, can they do they support it? Do they not? I mean, it's just absolute rubbish. But here's the thing I mean, Pauline Hansen can hardly say the word uh monocultural or multicultural, by the way. She stumbles over it every time. I saw her come down to the Senate chamber to give a speech the other day, and the words kind of fell out of her mouth. She couldn't quite get them out properly. And I thought to myself, it's not mono or multi that Pauline Hansen has a problem with. It's culture she doesn't like. Because of course, Australia has always been a culturally rich country, and we have the oldest living culture in the world, and the our indigenous population, the oldest living culture in the world, something we should be really proud about. And she hates that. And of course, Australia is made up of cultures from all over the world, and they bring music and art and food and sport, and we've got a culture in this country of fairness and equality. And Pauline Hansen in this press club speech went after women's rights. And we've got a history that we should be proud of when it comes to women in Australia, and the first countries in the world to give women the right to vote. And Pauline Hansen wants to strip away our rights to childcare, to pay parental leave, to abortion. I mean, if Pauline Hansen was around when they were debating giving women the right to vote, she would have said no. She would have said no. So it's culture that Pauline Hansen has a real problem with. It really is just feeding this division and hate. And it's lazy politics. But it's really, really, I mean, it's it's obviously dangerous. Because when you strip away all of that, all of the rhetoric, all of the slogans, really what Pauline is trying to do is tear down democracy and the institutions that make our democracy strong. She's attacked journalists for that reason. I mean, she wants Australia to be more like Trump's America. And that's where democracy is crumbling. And she's using this multiculturalism debate to tear us apart, to make us fight each other, to make us think that somehow the country used to be a certain way. When of course we all know that's bullshit. She hates who we are, she hates Australia's history, where we've come from, who we are, where we're going. I mean, I fucking love this country. It's the best country on earth. And when we see our soccer team smashing it at the World Cup full of people from all parts of the world who have come to Australia to make it their home, or their parents did, I'm proud. And Pauline Hansen isn't just being divisive, she's not patriotic. It's cultural vandalism. And all of the hate that is dripped out and the division. I mean, for a party that calls themselves one nation, all they do is divide, divide, divide, and they shouldn't be called one nation. The one nation party. They're the hate nation party. Pauline Hansen's hate nation party. And I know Australia is better than that. What makes this country so great is our culture, our food, our communities, our music, our art, our stories, our sense of justice, our beautiful environment. And you never hear Pauline Hansen talking about any of those things because she's not a patriot, she's a vandal. So my very first guest is Antoinette Letouf. And I think this is so fitting for my very first podcast episode because uh here I am, a politician interviewing Antoinette, a journalist. When I'm not really interviewing her, we're having a conversation and it's it's a chat. But we are flipping our roles, and it's a great reflection on what we're here to talk about today: the changing relationship between media and politics. Both of us have stepped outside our traditionally rigid uh scripts of the systems we work in. We've both experienced having to stand up and call out what's been going on to push back in a system that so often expects women to just calmly accept the limitations that are baked in or to suck up and accept the bad treatment that's been normalized for too long. I've had my own experiences of choosing when to stand up and call it out, which I actually talked to Antoinette about in her new book, Women Who Win. We're gonna have a bit of a conversation about that as well today. So for those of you who don't know that story, I'll be sharing a bit more of that later on. And of course, Antoinette has her own story. Last year, Antoinette went from writing headlines to being in the headlines when she took legal action against the ABC after being dismissed for sharing a human rights watch post to her Instagram story. A post that was about the fact that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. So this conversation is a really good sense check. We're both working inside systems and pushing for change. I've started a podcast. Antoinette has built a new independent media company called Et Media alongside Jan Fran. We're both trying to fight for democracy at a time when others are trying to destroy it. We've swapped roles. We have swapped roles. One of the reasons why I wanted to bring you in here today was because uh whether we're talking about politics or we're talking about the media, there is so much negativity. There is so much division. And there's such a huge trust deficit. And there is such a huge trust deficit. Bang on that, you just nailed it. And yet, that doesn't serve the people's interest, right? Politics has to be done better. I think the media needs to be done better if we're to deal with the issues that you know people are really struggling with. Yeah, neither of us are billionaires. And we're both trying something different. That's right. That's right. That's right. But you know, I think to myself that it's the billionaires, actually, who would love for everyone to put their hands up in the air and go, oh, the media sucks, you can't believe anything in the media. Politicians are all liars, don't listen to them. The billionaires want us to vacate the field.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yes, the the the division works. Yeah. Um pitting people against each other works, creating a larger trust vacuum serves the interests of a few. But I think more and more people are caughting on to the fact that this does not serve our democracy and this does not serve lay people or the issues, the very real issues that they face.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah. And so, you know, you you obviously had a very famous departure from the ABC.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

As my daughter says, I am Australia's most famous sacked person. Which is a very a weird thing to try and put on LinkedIn. Yes, that is.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I don't know what the algorithm would do with that, actually. Kids are just so good, aren't they? At just absolutely saying it as it is. Yeah, the zingers. Yeah, the zingers. Um, well, let's start with that. Obviously, yes, you as the most famous person sacked, or someone who's had to depart the ABC. You've now got your own podcast, you're writing books. Do you still see yourself as a journalist?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Look, the title of our podcast, we used to be journose, is a little bit tongue-in-cheek because of course we're journalists. We've worked, both Jantran and I have worked across between both of us, pretty much every newsroom, every medium, so many programs between us. We have so many, so much experience. But the state of media at the moment, we don't necessarily identify with or want to align with. And so it was a cheeky way to put ourselves at arm's length because we are critiquing and trying to promote media literacy, but also acknowledging that we were part of legacy media and we built our platforms and a lot of our audiences via legacy media. So it's an acknowledgement that we're trying to, I guess, straddle. Well, we straddle both worlds in a way, because of our proximity to legacy media and the way we reach new audiences and use social media. I think journalism is in a state of crisis at the moment for a range of reasons, because the business model has been under threat with the rise of this little thing called the internet, where advertising dollars are going to Google and social media, where they used to traditionally be spent on car ads in newspapers and television commercials. Funding good journalism costs money and it's harder to fund journalism. And at the same time, you have the public broadcaster, which is part of the reason I took them to court, which really should be the bastion of public interest independent journalism, because they don't face those commercial interests because they are taxpayer funded. And so when you're in a position where the ABC has shown time and time again that it has a jelly spine, whether it's in response to attacks by conservative governments, attacks by the Murdoch press, attacks or pressure by certain lobby groups, then we're really in a in a state of crisis. And then and then just whacking AI. Yeah. You know, and that's the latest thing. Um and so it's a difficult time to be a journalist, and we don't see ourselves or we don't aspire to operate or work within the the parameters or the ecosystem of legacy media or what what we like to call establishment media, because we we don't think establishment media is serving audiences.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

And when we say establishment, we mean the radios, the TVs, the the newspapers, even though they're on they're still online, right? But that kind of old school traditional way. I mean, it's interesting because I've been in politics some time now and have seen the way the media has changed and political correspondents have changed the way they engage with the things the parliament does, with politicians, with the community. I mean, we're now seeing more and more, not just thinner newspapers, um, shorter articles, you know, the kind of 24-hour media cycle. We're seeing journalists not just going to a press conference and writing up a story, they're then getting into the podcast studio or on their phones and doing a self-video to put up on social media.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah. Isn't it crazy? I think you and I both started our respective jobs about 20 years ago. I entered journalism about 20 years ago, you entered politics about 20 years ago. To think, like it would have been unthinkable that the two of us would be sitting here having this conversation with you interviewing me. Yeah. With the politician interviewing the journo slash used to be journo.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

The entire dynamic between journalists and the media has changed. In many ways, for the worse, I think.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Um it's that kind of clickbait, distraction, distraction. It's almost as if the system is now all geared to the loudest voice, right? And I think, I mean, back to your point about the role of the public broadcaster, one of those roles is really to ensure that it's not just the loudest voice that gets covered or that it gets heard. And politicians fall into that category too.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah. But do we run the risk of being even more tribal or have media and politicians always sort of operated in camps? Like some would argue, like, would you, for example, have someone in this seat on your podcast from the Australian newspaper? Would I say yes to a politician? Actually, I've never been asked by a politician, another politician to be on their podcast. So let's like if if an independent or one nation asked me to be involved, like who we choose to engage with, does that run the risk of that further tribalism and division? Because I'm not sure you'd have someone from the Australian in this seat. And I'm not sure I'd have someone from one nation where you're sitting and say yes to. That's that's that's an interesting point.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

And I'm gonna think about that. Who it is that I would invite from the Australian. But it's interesting because I mean I've criticized the Murdoch press a lot. Um I think the influence that they've had on not just the media landscape, but particularly politics and the electioneering and politicking that that they've participated in, not just in Australia. I mean this, they've they've they've done this, the UK, obviously, um, the US is a is a classic example. Uh but so much of the front page now seems to be less news, more commentary. And I I'd argue maybe that's because that's what people want to read.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Well, I mean, I think a couple a couple of reasons. It's it's opinion disguised as news to try and either set the agenda. Also, opinion is cheaper to make. Like I can sit here and I could quickly turn around a 600-word rage piece with very little information, very little evidence, than it would to actually go out and collect data, read reports, look at financial statements. Like real journalism and public interest journalism takes time and it can often be hard. Um and sometimes it doesn't, it doesn't it doesn't land. It doesn't necessarily click away. And so I think two things are happening. You could have like political ideology is at play, but also fewer resources and wanting to spend less time on journalism. I'm just going to go back to one of the earlier things you said about do you consider yourself a journalist? Yes, I am obviously a journalist, but I Jan and I want to be the type of journalist where we are just we are forthcoming, we are not neutral.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

We are not neutral to And that's the point you're you're saying in terms of being unashamedly, well, you you will choose who you have a conversation with.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, and we are not neutral to the evidence. And so, for example, and one of the the most telling things, like during the genocide in Gaza, having to stay neutral in the face of grave injustice, it's like, well, you don't stay neutral in you you you carry the you look where the weight of evidence is. For so long, journalists have gone, oh, we've just got to, we've gotta, we've gotta be in the center. And we've got to, if these people say this, and we've got to go to the other people who say that, because they're allowed to. And so for years we had climate change deniers given equal weight to overwhelming evidence. Yes. And recently at the National Press Club, when they had the new Israeli ambassador espouse horrific, terrible propaganda for half an hour off the back of however many journalists they've killed. Uh Jan Fran and I joked and was like, it's crazy in the face of evidence to have somebody to go, oh well, we have to balance it out because the National Press Club organizers came out and said, Well, previously we've had this person from the United Nations and this person from a Palestinian group. So we we're giving it balance. And then we laughed and said, Hey, that's crazy. That's like giving a mad climate denier a platform because you gave someone who actually has credibility and evidence. And they did.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

We looked back. I was gonna say, I think that's happened a few times. That's happened a few times. I think that's happened a few times. And I yeah, it is it is interesting, isn't it? That kind of like public interest journalism is about facts. Yes. It is about news, it is about um how this issue is impacting this particular group of people or the community, or you know, uh how it's giving weight to a particular decision being made, how it impacts people. There's nothing wrong with opinion. It's just not the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

It's not the same thing. And and giving false balance or pressing your fingers on the weight to appear more balanced when the weight of evidence is imbalanced. You have to follow the weight of evidence. So I guess when we when we look at the role we play as journalists, we just want to be far more honest. We intend to be fair, we want to follow the facts, and we want to be accurate, but we are unashamedly open about the fact that we are progressive. We are progressive and we care about human rights. Like, so we have our ethical, we have our values, and I think if outlets are more honest about who they are and what they are, rather than like SMH or the nine newspapers have like independent always, it's like, really?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Are you or are you beholden to your advertisers? It's interesting because I was um I was watching that uh recent documentary over the weekend on um the Murdoch dynasty. I can't get enough of the the success the real life succession story. And some of the things that have come out through the court case where uh Rupert Murdoch, Rupert and Laughlin took the rest of the family uh siblings to court to fight over who would control the board when Rupert dies. The things that come at had come out through the the court case, one of them was very clear positioning from Rupert, you know, the senior Murdoch, saying the reason that he wanted Loughlin to be in control of the company when he dies and not James or the other siblings is because he was worried that they would go to the left or to the center rather than uh keep it to the right. Yeah. So so so here you have, you know, one of the most powerful media moguls in the world.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

He's he's so open. He's so open about his agendas. He's so pro-Israel, he's open about his interests in in um fossil fuels and denying climate change, his And he doesn't want he doesn't even want his kid any his kids having any chance of saying, Yeah, actually, maybe let's we could cover something else for a little while. Yeah, exactly. Um and so I think audiences have cottoned on. I think we need to give audiences more credit that they are more skeptical, um, then they're not stupid. And so I think we need to be honest about our interactions. Like even this interaction. I you're in my book. I have respected your work, not a Greens party member, but I would say yes to you and I wouldn't say yes to Angus Taylor. And I'm I'm unashamed about that. Yeah, yeah. And I'm and I'm open about that.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

And I think that's really I think that's refreshing and that and and that's important. Let's talk about the book. Sure. Yeah. You know, you've called it Women Who Win, and it's full of stories of a variety of different types of cases. You won your case. Yes. Remind me how long was the trial?

SPEAKER_01 21:22

So so the trial lasted uh entirely nine days over a five-day contract. Which is crazy when you put it in those terms. And then some people will be like, like, why did she fight so much over a five-day contract? Like it's it's not even a big deal. It's like, well, it's what it represented was a far bigger deal than and than that than those days or even me.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yes, yes. It was such a public thing. And I mean, I remember talking to you afterwards, and you were saying that this was you interviewed me for the book, exactly. And you were saying part of that was people had seen it. What happens if you didn't stand up and do something? About this, right? Like what message does that send? Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

And I think that's the that's the main reason I did it because this was quite early on. It was December 2023. So two months after the October 7 attacks. Um and Israel's reaction was enormous, disproportionate, and included many documented war crimes. By then, thousands of children had been killed. At least a hundred journalists had been killed. The evidence was mounting already. Um, but journalists still felt in incredibly restrained to report what had happened because October 7 was also large-scale an atrocity. So you had one day of atrocities, which absolute atrocities and war crimes were committed, and then daily atrocities for two months that followed. And the fact that I sh me sharing a human rights watch post, me sharing concerns for children who were being starved, which was documented by Human Rights Watch, reported by the ABC, the fact that that was considered contentious, the fact that I had talked about IDF soldiers using rape as a tool of war, which they have for decades, and we now know we've seen it in plain sight, the way they've used rape of prisoners. So my only mistake was being right early and being brave enough to say it. And so if I hadn't stood up and defended myself, that chilling effect, which was already in place, would have had, I think, an even greater chilling effect on people.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Do you think it would have uh created the same reaction if you'd been a bloke?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

I don't think I would have been fired if I had been a bloke, firstly. I don't think I'd been fired if I I I don't think I'd been treated as awfully if I not only was a bloke, but if I wasn't someone um with a Middle Eastern background myself. I think both of those things cast me as someone who's easily disposable, but also somebody who can't be trusted near a microphone, even though nothing I did on air was a problem because I was doing a lifestyle programme, playing music and talking about very light Christmassy stuff. I was gonna say it was just before Christmas. Well, it was the Christmas show, basically. It was a Christmas show. I wasn't even talking about the Middle East. Um and so the way I was cast aside is a problem, distrustful, um, as came out in the emails and on the stand, I was an activist, which again is a term that's really weaponized usually against uh women or people from minority backgrounds, because we can't be trusted to be objective. We can't look at the facts and we're too emotional. Yes. Or we're too attached to it. Yes. Um no, I don't think and most of I mean, and that's part of the reason I wrote this book because all of the women in this book who won their various things wouldn't have had to had these challenges if they weren't a woman.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yes, and and that and and that's what's interesting about this is there's some clear similarities that run through most, if not all, of these stories, right? What are the things that stand out to you of woman who's decided she's got to take this on and call it out? Yeah. And you've interviewed people and you've gone through this book. Yeah. What are the two or three key things that everybody said?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

One of the things everybody said was um they all talked about how hard it is and was, and that it came at a cost. All of them, despite their wins, had a cost. So winning winning is a is a uh It's fraught in many ways. It's fraught, it's but it but it's only a word. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes and that's the reason I decided to title the book even before I had won, because I decided that sticking up for myself and not backing down and not being discarded was a win in itself. Um that might seem like, oh wow, you got the participation ribbon, you gave yourself a participation ribbon before the race was over, maybe. Um but the notion of winning was is just is so fraught and complex. Um, another thing was understanding that they may not reap the benefits of their win. Everybody had this sense that yes, I won, but did I really win? And for some of the women, I mean I interviewed many, but there were other women I profiled who are not with us like anymore. And many women didn't bear the fruits of their labor. Like they they didn't, they weren't able to revel in their success. And I wrestled with that too. I was like, I don't want to be a martyr. That sucks. Like I'd like to, I'd like to cruise a little bit more comfortably and navigate life a bit more comfortably. Uh and finally, the and the reason I also wrote this was other women helping them get through it, the support of other women or the inspiration from other women. I think that would be probably a common, a common thread. You know, whether they whether they knew it or not, whether they reached out or not. Like I I've over the 20 years only met you once at an event. But I followed your case and the way you took on a part of law which was usually hostile to women or used against women.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Defamation law.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

You don't realise how much courage is contagious. You don't realise how much people draw strength from you. And so when I say turning to other women, sometimes it was having the support, the over support of other women, other times it's She's done it, so I can have a go.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah. I just reflecting on that, the cost. Oh, we talked about the trial was long.

unknown 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

You've had to, you know, the process. None of this is easy. Right. But it is important whether you win or not, whether you'd won or not, it's important because if you don't have a go, what chance does a Lebanese Australian schoolgirl have when she's in the in the classroom and says, Oh, hang on a minute, what's going on in why is, you know, my grandfather's town being bombed?

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

And being told to shut up. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Um, I think obviously for the younger version, the younger Antoinette didn't have somebody to look towards. We did part of the reason I got into the media was to tell stories and be a presence at a time post-September 11 where if you were Arab or uh Muslim, you were flattened into a threat or horrible sort of stereotypes and dehumanized. So on the one hand, I know that that has been impactful for people in my community, but more broadly because what it did do was also set a legal precedent in employment law because the right to voice a political opinion hadn't been tested before the federal courts under, gosh, section 772 of the Fair Work Act. And so now there is legal precedent that you can't be targeted or you shouldn't be fired for holding or expressing a political opinion, whether that be about the environment or immigration or fossil fuels or anything. You are you reserve the right to have a political opinion and not be fired for it. And so I know that this is being studied in law schools because I'm told it's being studied by barristers, and the law firm that represented me says they get calls almost daily, like, oh, we the the Antoinette case. We want to, we believe we've been mistreated or we believe we've been um fired because of our political opinion.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

That's a really tangible result. Yes. A really tangible result. Can we just flip back to where that now means where where you now are in all of this? You're doing this other work as a you know someone critical of the media. But also people are tuning in and listening to you because you are unashamably direct about what you believe, even when the facts are as they are.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

That's why I say if I think if you are honest with the audience and they know that you will be fair and driven by facts, I think audiences are smart enough to know that nobody is truly objective. Like we do not come out of this world. We're all human. We all feel, we all have upbringings, we all have connections, we all vote, we all make choices about what cheese we buy. We all have opinions. And to suggest that we are these just like straight rulers and we just it's nonsense. It's it's something that was crafted uh by straight white men. And apparently only straight white men can be truly objective, and the rest of us, you know, we bring too much baggage.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

But this is actually why we need diversity in media. A diversity of voices, a diversity in the the size and scale and the reaches of the liberal. That is how you make sure that overarchingly there is a rich media fabric by which the community can tap into and listen to, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah, absolutely. Because at the moment we have the second most concentrated media in the world, second to Brazil only. And so the Murdoch press and four, I think four newspaper groups, it's just it's not only the Murdoch press, but it's it's uh seven West Media, nine newspapers, you know, buying nine television. And so what you then have is not only a disproportionate few setting the agenda, you also have parts of the political class that run scared of a Murdoch smear campaign. Like the the relationship between media and politicians in this country is too entwined. It's serving the interests of power, and we have this perspective because I've started an independent media company. You're part of a progressive smaller political party. Um, but we're not hearing these rumblings or concerns by the government or large establishment media. Because at the moment, that cosing is working.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

And so that's why there haven't been you know calls for a Murdoch Royal Commission have been slapped down.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

It was like half a million people signed a petition, and I mean I get I still get emails on a regular basis, week in, week out, from members of the community saying we want a Royal Commission, we want a Royal Commission. And neither Labour nor Liberal will touch it.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Because it's probably they're thinking donor suicide, political suicide because of a smear campaign that will come. I'm I I'm not sure. That's just my my instinct. Um even with the ABC, the the judgment from Justice Srangeer was clear that the ABC, not only did they capitulate to pro-Israel lobbyists, they sacked me to try and beat they were his words, beat a story that was coming about the Australian, right? And so ever since that, we never, the court case was never able to, and it wasn't what it was examining, who leaked the fact that I had been sacked to the Australian because there was an article about me before I'd even gotten home. Since it's all come to light, the ABC gave this apology, they go, Oh, we're going to make our social media rules stricter. It's like, well, the social media rules were never broken. They were never the problem. The problem was at the top of the organization. The problem is capitulating to lobbyists and being scared of Murdoch press. The fact that the ABC itself has not yet investigated who was talking to the Australian. Why is the Australian, who almost exists, to bash the ABC and undermine its credibility?

SPEAKER_00 32:25

As someone who has to sit in uh Senate estimates, you see it, I see it. You see it all the time. I see it firsthand. It's just like, you know, and I and I'm almost at a point now where I see something on come on the screen on the ABC or or on the radio, and I I will often mention to, you know, my husband or the or my staff and say, uh, that'll be raised at centre estimates. Yeah. Because you can tell which things the Australian newspaper are gonna pick up, whip up, um, put up in lights. It is a business model for the Murdoch press to attack the public broadcasters.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yes. And the public broadcaster has not shown evidence that it can withstand it or that it's interested in looking in its own backyard and going, okay, how do how do we fix this? And that's the frightening state of affairs that that we're in. And again, audiences have cottoned onto that. Um I think that what you and I share is we want the ABC to be stronger. This is not about an ABC bashing exercise. If the public broadcaster isn't stronger, if our democracy isn't operating as best it can, then we all suffer.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah, I mean I'm I'm a big fan of the ABC. We need it. We we we absolutely need public broadcasting. And for all the reasons that you're saying, that the business model of legacy media, the advertising model, has fallen away. If we want good quality public interest journalism, actually it's got to be publicly funded. And so that's what we need. So we we really we don't want to burn the house down. No. It needs some of the foundations fixed.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

I was just saying, I'm playing Journo and Producer while I sit here. I we mentioned in passing that you're in my book and then you took on a case, but there might be some people listening who don't know the intricacies or what it was that happened in your defamation case.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Are you happy to talk about to talk about that? Well, I think that's an interesting one because it it really does relate to the media and what and how the media was used, actually. Um, you know, my parliamentary colleague at the time, David Lionhelm, uh attacked me um verbally uh in the in the in the parliamentary chamber, and uh it had been going on for some time, but this particular day it was it was pretty horrible. We're voting on a uh uh a motion in relation to violence against women and stopping violence against women. And uh, you know, there'd been all these kind of sexist slurs and um sexual harassment going on for for quite some time. The boys in the chamber, you know, really shut the young woman up um uh being me. And so he's he he s he he yelled out in the middle of this debate that I should stop shagging men. Um and it was just kind of a lightning bolt moment for me that for years I'd been putting up with these kind of these this sexualized bullying, that I'm not really worth being there as a politician because I'm, you know, I'm uh I I'm not I'm not a serious player because I'm a young woman who um had some fuckability. Frankly, like that that is ultimately what was going on. A male colleague of mine in the midst of the the case actually said to me, He said, I just don't understand these right-wing blokes. They just they can't work out if they hate you or want to fuck you. Probably a combination of the two. And it was such a that it was such a light bulb moment for me because I was like, oh my god, that's what people think. Like that's what my entire political career, all the things that I'm doing, it's that's what people are talking about.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Like that is so undermining of the job that I need to be doing here. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

And so ordinarily that is protected under parliamentary privilege, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

So if it said but but then uh he came out and said it. So I'd asked for an apology in the chamber. And like what often these types of men do, he rather than apologising, went outside, doubled down, and said worse things. Yeah. In the media, on Sky News, on the radio, and kind of, you know, assuming that I wouldn't do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

And I think that's a key thing in a lot of the a lot of the stories in this book is the assumption that a woman will just have to either be treated well, um, engage with rules that are overtly discriminatory or bad, or be denied access to a certain industry, and that we would just quietly cop it. And in all instances, like yourself, have been like, you know what, I'm not just gonna cop it.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

No, but if I'm really honest. You considered it? I'd I'd been copying it for a long time. Yeah, right. I can't. I'd been copying it for a long time, and I'd copied it and I'd copied it and I'd copied it, and to a point where it had started to work. You know, I'd I'd limited the amount of time I'd spent in the chamber, I would limit what I'd say, I'd limit who I'd who, you know, whose policies I'd call out, like it had started to have an impact on the work that I was doing, this kind of sexualized harassment and bullying. And so when David Lionhelm said what he said and then went on radio and television and doubled down uh and said that I'm known for having lots of boyfriends. I mean and so what if you were, but anyway, it's just frankly I was too busy doing my job. Um but yeah, it's got nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing to do with it. And so I really felt at that point I had to do something because I had been copying it and it was so public, you know, the media were running it, it was like it was, you know, headlines, newspapers, and and I called it out. And because I'd called it out, you got more attention.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

And and that's the that's the thing. And then women run the risk of being told, oh, well, you're just bringing this attention onto yourself, you're making it worse.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yes, all of that. I mean, I had some female parliamentarians, colleagues, who said to me, I just I just don't think you should do this. I just don't think this is gonna make it worse for you. And I'm and and that doesn't come from a bad place. No, yeah. Right? That doesn't come from a bad place. But they were wrong.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Because that is what I'd done for for years, and it hadn't gotten any better, it had gotten worse, it's starting to impact me. But when it was put in the media and become so public, I felt very clearly that I had a responsibility now to do something about it, to take that defamation action. Because if I didn't, the sign that sends and the message that sends to everybody else, every gir, you know, the young woman who's being harassed behind the bar, the mum who's being harassed at the sports club, you know, the high school girl who's who's copying um sexist harassment from boys in her classroom. I mean, if they're seeing me be so publicly abused and see me not do anything, that says, well, you shouldn't do anything either. You need to cop this too.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

But it was also at a time when in the kind of post-me Too years, in defamation law, particularly in Australia, was being used against women who accused people of being sexual assaulters, abusers, rapists, all the things. And so it was actually having your your story in using defamation law, not only did it become the first case in Australia where a parliamentarian, a sitting parliamentarian successfully sued another sitting parliamentarian, it was also accessed by somebody who wasn't a wealthy film producer or a politician with a rip-or a businessman who doesn't like that somebody at his workplace said that you know that's the same.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yes, normally normally defamation is has been used to to shut down the woman accusing the man of the harassment. And and because he was silly enough to go and say it outside the chamber, outside the realms of parliamentary privilege, that was my opportunity. And I had no other recourse. We don't have employment.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

You don't have employment in work.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

We don't have employment laws the way that we have the way other uh workers do. So it was really the only choice I had. But look, you know, and I won, but I totally understand that point around how long and hard it takes and the cost.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

It was uh by far the most stressful thing I've ever done. It did take a toll. But on the other hand, I actually feel really proud of what it meant, the message it sent, and I I I still have I still have some of these letters, and there's one particular letter that I that I was sent, and I think I told you about this in the in the interview for your book, but from a father who was just so overwhelmed by it all, and he just said, Thank you so much, because I just my daughter's copying this at her workplace, and I I've been trying to tell her she needs to do something and she doesn't think she can, and finally today she said she will. Oh, so that's you know, and like that is social change.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Yeah. But I can see you, it still impacts you. These things, these things don't stop hurting, they don't stop being hard.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

No. Even if you win. That's what's interesting about all this. Yeah. But even for the women who win, winning is a word. It's not actually a it's not a destination. It's not a destination. Uh oh, Antoinette, we could be going forever on this but it's such important issues and we're passionate about it. And I'm loving this experiment of the different roles. This is this has been so much fun. It has. So thank you. Um, but I'm asking everyone who comes on this podcast, you're chasing change. Yeah. You want change in the way politics is done, you want change in the way we understand and engage with the media and how the media engages with the public. Are you optimistic that we can get there?

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Oh gosh. I don't know if I'm optimistic. I know that this work is necessary and I know that people crave it, and that's um evidenced by the audience. Our audience at Media is growing, and the people who reach out to us and come to our shows and listen. There is a real appetite. People realise how high the stakes are. Um I don't know how I'm optimistic in the power of people. I'm not particularly optimistic in those who have power want to relinquish it. Um, and so I think it's going to take some real collective action to bring about that change.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

Well, I hope that engaging in these different and new forums is one way of helping people be sparked to thinking that they deserve better.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah, and that's and and business as usual is not okay, and things need to be done differently. We don't know if this is it or or what I'm doing is it, but business as usual is not okay. So we've got to try we we're gonna try something different.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, that was a really interesting conversation with Antoinette Letouf. Bit odd. Uh, politician interviewing a journalist, but I think it really explained this weird media world that we're in right now. And she said to me, Would you have someone from the Australian in this seat? You know, would I have someone from the Australian on my podcast? Um I think I probably would. I I think actually that'd be a really interesting thing to do. So you know, uh note to self. She's a journalist, but she's not neutral. And she said having to stay neutral in the face of injustice is impossible. And I think that's how a lot of us are feeling right now. Seeing all of this it's like information overload, and there's some really terrible things going on, whether it's You know, the wars in the Middle East, whether it's people being screwed over because they can't the system is stacked against young people. There is all this injustice. And how do you report on that in a neutral way without calling out the facts? And this is what Antoinette is saying is opinion is not bad. Opinion is important. And she's arguing that it's transparency of that. She's unashamedly opinionated. She cares about the facts, she does her research, she wants to be correct, but she's going to be upfront about her opinions. She is progressive. Antoine also said as a journalist, she's no longer interested in operating in establishment media because it's no longer serving audiences. And I think that's a really big one. You just look at the media trends. The media companies, their whole business model has changed, audience numbers are dropping. So many people say, and I hear this all the time, you know, I'm at the supermarket and somebody will come up and want to talk to me about politics. And that so often they say, I just don't even watch the news anymore. It's all bad. I hate it. And I think there is something in that. Like, why are people not wanting to hear and engage? Why are opinions being preferred by media organizations over news? Uh Antoinette says, because it's easy to make, it's cheaper to make, but that isn't serving the audience. So we we do really need to make sure that we keep investing in public interest journalism, but that we find ways to connect with people at the level that they're at. Because we still need to be engaged, we still need access to facts. But the thing that really got me in this whole conversation is the comments around the trust deficit. Because that's really what's clear about what's going on in politics and what's going on in media. People are losing trust in politicians. The two-party system is not working for people. It's not delivering for the community. People don't like believing the news. And it's like all journalists are liars and all politicians are corrupt. It is a deficit of belief in the system. And I'm actually really worried about that because that only serves the vested interests, the powerful corporations who are making mega bucks, the people who already have power and are calling the shots. They want the media to be distrusted. They want politicians to be distrusted. That is how you undermine the strength of a democracy. And if we want a strong, robust democracy that delivers for people, we actually have to be reinvesting in public interest journalism media and rebuilding the system. I'm not going to turn off the watching the ABC or stop doing interviews with the ABC because they did the wrong thing by Antoinette. We need a public broadcaster and we need to invest in it. But we also need investment in new forms of media that are still fact-based and not just people ranting and sharing their uninformed opinions. Antoinette's book is called Women Who Win. And our conversation really showed that winning comes at a cost, but it is a path of resistance that's worth taking. It's important to try because saying nothing doesn't work. And that when you see other women win, courage is contagious. And I think that's a pretty good, a pretty good omen to live by. Well, thank you for joining me today. Hope you've enjoyed this conversation as much as I have and looking forward to next time.