‘Narcissist’ leaders, online truth & why it’s ‘weird’ to be a man

PATRICIA KARVELAS

With social media spreading hate and lies, do you actually have to be a narcissist to take on the job of running a country? And if you did, how would you protect children from the impact of social media? And who decides what is true?

Joining our panel tonight: writer and broadcaster Jon Ronson; advocate and Hilma’s Network founder, Charlotte Mortlock; gambling reform advocate Tim Costello; columnist Claire Lehmann; and Federal Member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, joining us from Canberra.

Welcome to Q+A.

Hello. I’m Patricia Karvelas. I want to pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, on whose land we’re broadcasting from tonight, here in Melbourne.

You can livestream us around the country on iview and all the socials. #QandA is the hashtag. Please get involved.

To get us started tonight, here’s a question from Tara-Lyn Camilleri.

TARA-LYN CAMILLERI

Does our current political system enable or reward bad-faith actors and thus reward narcissists?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Jon.

JON RONSON, JOURNALIST, AUTHOR & FILMMAKER

Yes. And, in fact, I can back that up statistically. So, the studies show that 1% of the general public is a psychopath. So, there’s how many people here? Like, 200 people here tonight. So two of you are psychopaths.

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Great confirmation. Thank you. (LAUGHS)

JON RONSON

And I think I’ve spotted which ones.

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

JON RONSON

But that figure rises to 4% of business leaders and political leaders. So you’re four times more likely to have a psychopath at the top of the tree than at the bottom. And narcissism, I’d say, is probably similar figures. So why? Why is that? I think it’s partly internal, that if you have no love and kindness in your brain, all that’s left is the desire to win.

But it’s also, weirdly, our fault. We have collectively decided, as a society, to reward people who have the worst mental disorders possible. The ones where there’s no empathy, where there’s grandiosity, where people are impulsive and irresponsible and superficially charming. Those are the people we’re constantly pushing to the top of the tree.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Zoe, are we rewarding narcissists?

ZOE DANIEL, INDEPENDENT MP FOR GOLDSTEIN

PK, I was just wondering if we could talk about me for a while, if that would be alright.

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

ZOE DANIEL

Look, maybe. But I think this place is full of people of all different stripes. And particularly since community independents have come into the frame. Perhaps that’s a reflection of people wanting something different from their politicians, and maybe that’s a reflection of the kinds of people that were being elected, and wanting to change that.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Claire?

CLAIRE LEHMANN, JOURNALIST & COLUMNIST

I think politics has always attracted people who are narcissistic, but I would disagree that it’s always a bad thing. I think sometimes you do want leaders who have irrational self-belief. In times of crisis, you do want people to be able to push through conventional norms and be able to withstand a lot of social criticism. So I think it’s not always a bad thing.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

That’s an interesting perspective. Charlotte?

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK, BROADCASTER & ADVOCATE

I think that there are lots of good politicians, and I actually think that we spend so much time talking about how awful they are, but then saying we need more good people to go into politics. And so I think that that is counterproductive. I do think that there are narcissists in politics, but there are also narcissists at the top of every other industry, as Jon mentioned. And with social media, as a society, we’re becoming more narcissistic. We’re so focused on ourselves, and even, you know, the use of words like, ‘personal brand’. Like, what does that even mean, and why are we even supportive of that?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So what’s your personal brand, Tim Costello?

TIM COSTELLO, CENTRE FOR PUBLIC CHRISTIANITY SENIOR FELLOW

Oh, is the answer ‘narcissist’? Well, I have deliberately stayed out of politics for some of these reasons. I’ve had my temptations. And I say politics has always been my temptation, but not my vocation, not my calling.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

But you’ve been tempted?

TIM COSTELLO

I have been tempted. I’ve been very close a few times.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

And you come from a political family, of course.

TIM COSTELLO

Apparently, I do. And I actually think politics is a very high calling. I think the extraordinary good you can do is so important for the health of the nation and for flourishing. So I don’t... I agree with Charlotte. I don’t think we should be running politicians down. I do think that – and this is Claire’s point – that it self-selects. You know, to actually put yourself up for acceptance or rejection, you have to have ego strength. You actually have to be able to cope with being knocked back. And most of us have self-doubt. We don’t think our answers are right. And I think what’s got worse is we’ve almost got masters of the universe with absolutely no self-doubt now.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Who would you be referring to?

TIM COSTELLO

I don’t know any politicians or narcissists, PK, but the extraordinary explosion of being able to turn my grievances into your grievances, and I feel I’m your retribution, I think that level of narcissism is pretty scary.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yeah. Alright. Our next question comes from Penny Nichol.

PENNY NICHOL

Regarding the proposed misinformation and disinformation laws, who decides what’s true and what is not?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Claire.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Well, this is why I oppose these laws. Because I think the government has no place deciding what is true and what is not true. And, I mean, we can all agree that lies are bad, misinformation and disinformation is bad. You know, the internet and various platforms allow misinformation and disinformation to spread very quickly. And all of these things are bad. 

What’s worse is putting the government in charge of what is true. Once we do that, we’re basically living in a totalitarian state. So I think we just have to think a little bit more creatively about what we do about the problems with online platforms, rather than handing the power of deciding what...deciding what is true and false to government bureaucrats.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Zoe, you supported the bills, with some changes.

ZOE DANIEL

I did. I did. And it’s a complex area, there’s no doubt about that. But at the moment, the arbiters of truth are Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, because there is no regulation. It’s a self-regulated industry. And indeed, the platforms are already removing content and managing misinformation and disinformation. 

What the recent legislation seeks to do is to put some guardrails around that – so, to say to the platforms, “We want you to let us know how you’re managing the areas where we think there could be a problem in regard to misinformation and disinformation,” and to create some accountability. At the end of the day, they should be accountable for what’s on their platforms, and they should be accountable to us, the people, not simply in total control of what they’re feeding us.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So, Claire, that point about who controls information, Zoe’s got a point, right? I mean, they are ultimately in control. They run the platforms.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Well, I mean, these platforms don’t want to decide what is true and false. They want... I mean, they’ve said, “This is too hard for us.” And so there is a lot of...there are a lot of lies spread online. But, you know, as adults, of users of these platforms, we decide what is true and what isn’t. I mean, I sort of get a bit... It’s a bit tiresome when you can open up a newspaper or turn on a TV... I mean, there’s all sorts of misinformation being spread all the time. Every truth claim is provisional. What we think is true today might be determined to be false tomorrow. So where do you draw the line?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Jon, is there no universal truth? I mean, there are certain things which are verifiable facts, are there not?

JON RONSON

Yeah. We can’t let go of that, that some things are just true, evidentially true.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

JON RONSON

But I would say, going back to narcissism very briefly, another problem with having narcissists in charge is that narcissists don’t really care very much about the truth. They care about themselves. People often wonder, why is there a rise of conspiracy theories? A lot of that is to do with narcissists in power, because narcissists want to be the smartest person in the room, and sometimes the way to do that is to come up with some counterintuitive information that nobody else has, which quite often is untrue information, like conspiracy theories and so on.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Yeah.

JON RONSON

However, where I agree with you, Claire, is that there’s lots of different ways to lie.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Yeah.

JON RONSON

Now, when the right lie, they tend to lie in these big baroque, almost mythological ways, like QAnon and Pizzagate and all of that kind of stuff.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Eating cats and dogs?

JON RONSON

Yeah, eating cats and dogs. That’s a very good example. When the left lie, it’s kind of more subtle. It’s like...it’s lies by omission. It’s leaving certain voices out of the debate. It’s, like, subtle biases. So people who are in charge of, you know, deciding what is and isn’t misinformation, I think, can be prone to just thinking about the big lies that come from the right...

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Yeah.

JON RONSON

...and then they allow the little lies that come from the left a bit of a free pass.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

And how do we police opinion? I mean, if you go onto Twitter, for example, most of what you see is opinion, and some of it is very inflammatory. People, you know, have very strong opinions, are, you know... How do we determine what is a truth claim and what is an opinion? I mean, it gets so complicated, and I just don’t think bureaucrats will be up to the task.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

I don’t think they’re going to be up to the task. And I think that is because they’re narcissists, because...

JON RONSON

Mm.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

...social media, the giants, have not self-regulated an iota. And that is obviously, everyone’s ideal situation, that they do self-regulate, and they have no intention to, ‘cause they don’t care.

JON RONSON

Yeah.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Because their engagement of conspiracy theories grows. And I do think that going back to how all of this started, and talking about opinion, Trump has taken advantage of, I think, a media landscape that didn’t do a good enough job of being the fourth estate...

JON RONSON

Yes.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

...and didn’t do a good enough job of differentiating between opinion and fact. And he went right through the middle and said, “Fine, if you guys are going to be biased and not report on the truth, then...” And that’s how it’s happened.

JON RONSON

Yeah. Well, that’s exactly the point. You know, we cheer on the collapse of institutions for good reason. Institutions have let us down. They leave out the voices that we find unpalatable – priests abuse children, there’s all sorts of reasons...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Is that’s what’s happening in the US? There’s a cheering on of the...?

JON RONSON

Oh, absolutely. 100%. But what happens in the absence of institutions? We cheer on the collapse of institutions. When institutions collapse, narcissists thrive. So that’s what’s happening in the United States. 

I’ll tell you one positive thing, though, in all of this.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Please.

JON RONSON

Yeah.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

A positive.

JON RONSON

Well, a positive thing, you know, in Elon Musk’s otherwise monstrous reign... Like, I have very few positive things to say about Elon Musk, but he introduced this thing called Community Notes on X, and that seems to be really working. It’s this idea that we, the people, can actually figure out what’s true and what’s not true.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm.

JON RONSON

You know, when you see, like, all this AI stuff on Twitter these days – I refuse to say X, although I guess it’s too late now – what you see underneath these pictures of AI is all these people go, “Well, that’s just AI.” You know, everybody was, like, scared that we would all get, like, confused by what was true and what’s not true. But I think we’re being quite good, actually, at readapting to this new world. And we’re quite good at figuring out what’s true and what’s not true.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

And the beauty of Community Notes is that it’s not centralised, it’s decentralised. So there’s people all over the world checking each other’s blind spots. And that’s how...

JON RONSON

Yeah.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

...we work out what is true and what isn’t.

JON RONSON

Yeah. I agree with you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So, Tim Costello, it’s all working? Community Notes will sort it out?

TIM COSTELLO

No. Although I’m the last person to ask. I was on Facebook for a nanosecond, and when my three children all de-friended me, I got off. I couldn’t cope with the rejection. So I know...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Why would anyone de-friend you?

TIM COSTELLO

Go ask them. Exactly, PK. Look, I absolutely think all of us want courteous civil conversations. We want to be safe. We do know there is a great difficulty in distinguishing a lie from opinion, and none of us are going to trust some self-appointed arbiter. But Jon’s point about institutions is so important. You know, most of the institutions from last century that are fragmenting, whether it’s church or unions or political parties or military, and they’ve all perpetrated abuses. Actually, we need a framework and we don’t have one now. And it can’t be Elon Musk.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Right. So, Zoe, returning to you, because you’re the only person here on the panel that actually got a vote. You heard the arguments made by some of the others about the kind of system sorting it out, people sorting it out. Are you not convinced by that?

ZOE DANIEL

Look, it’s not a takedown bill. It’s a guardrails bill. And I think we need some, because at the moment we have none. And in effect, what it says to the platforms is, “What are you doing to mitigate the risk of your algorithms spreading misinformation and disinformation?” And we need to be aware of the consequences of misinformation and disinformation and, indeed, the human rights of the people that that affects. For example, the young Jewish man in Sydney who was falsely accused of the Bondi stabbings, or the people in the UK who were affected by race riots based on misinformation and disinformation.

JON RONSON

Mm.

ZOE DANIEL

So we need to find a balance there. My final point, PK, is, as you know, I’m a former journalist – I’ve seen death and destruction that has never made it into my news reports. It lives live in my brain and will until the day that I leave this earth. But it never reached any of our viewers. Because mainstream media practises a form of content management that is linked to social mores and norms and what we think that people will tolerate in our community. So to think that this is the first time that we’re talking about media platforms having some control or responsibility to remove or manage harmful information is naive. This has always happened in one way or another.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

We’re going to keep this discussion going. And we’ve got a question from Wayne Pile.

WAYNE PILE

To prevent wealthy interest groups and individuals from buying political candidates and selling agendas, what is the argument against public money being used and capped equally across all candidates?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, we’ll start with you, Zoe, because, clearly, this big bill has a lot to do with...will have a big impact on independents.

ZOE DANIEL

Yeah. So, we need to get big money out of politics, and we need to make some changes. And electoral reform is a good thing. So, transparency, real-time disclosure, lowering the disclosure thresholds, all of those things I support. Forms of caps, maybe, but not if they entrench the major parties. And the bill that the government has put forward, which was given to the crossbench, I might add, on Friday or Saturday and was tabled today, and we are debating it tomorrow after a six-month drafting process, I believe, will entrench the major parties. And it’s funny to me that they’ve been trucking along happily, together, until they’re under threat, and now, suddenly, they’ve made a deal. Really, the first time I’ve seen them cooperate on anything since I’ve been here. They’ve put through legislation that entrenches their power. 

There is a cap on spending under this bill of $800,000 per candidate, but political parties would have a $90 million national cap. Now, they could advertise in marginal electorates like mine, saying, “Vote Liberal,” or, “Vote Labor”, and that wouldn’t be under the candidate’s cap, and they have massive national brands that already give them an enormous advantage. More than 30% of Australians at the last election did not vote for one of the major parties, and, unfortunately, this is a blatant attempt by those parties to cut those communities out of the frame.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Wayne, what do you make of the laws, or as much as you know about them? Obviously, they’re all very fresh to all of us.

WAYNE PILE

I think I’m probably concerned that what I’ve seen in the last election, where $1 billion was spent on one presidential candidate... I think, in Australia, we’re unique, with a compulsory voting system. And I’m starting to see that the political debate and discussion in our community, with all these mechanisms of social media has been watered down. And I think that’s where independents have come in, that they’re talking at a different voice. I just believe that if there’s going to be money spent, that it should be equal across all candidates in each electorate...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm.

WAYNE PILE

so that they all have an equal voice and can put up an equal argument and debate in their respective communities.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

It’s an interesting point you make, Wayne, because the government says that this is about getting big money out. And tonight, Clive Palmer has spoken on ABC TV, as well, talking about that. He’s obviously challenging it in the High Court. Tim Costello, are the laws fair enough, or are you worried about the impact they’ll have on new entrants into politics, people like Zoe?

TIM COSTELLO

Yeah, no, I’m very worried. I think it is a stitch-up by the big parties. I think it’s a really good thing to get big money out. Absolutely support that. But, if the taxpayer is going to subsidise that, and we are, the taxpayer has the right to say what Wayne just said – namely, it should be equal for all the candidates. I am very worried that the structural problems in the major parties won’t be addressed this way. And we know they have structural problems in engagement. 

So, why did the teals do so well? Pre-teals, it was Cathy McGowan around her kitchen table, particularly with women in the community saying, “We’ve...we want to participate.” That actually rejuvenated politics. It then became teals. Involvement, participation, energy, new ideas – I think this stitch-up of the duopoly is actually killing that off. That part really worries me.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Mm.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Charlotte, you’re aligned with the Liberal Party. Is it a deal between the two big parties just to lock everyone out? A bit of a sort of, “Let’s just keep us here”?

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Well, I think it’s important to note that Labor will be the biggest beneficiaries of this. And this is because they have the unions. There are, in New South Wales, I think, about 20 unions that are directly affiliated with the ALP. So, they will, by and large, be the biggest beneficiaries of this. 

However, I just have to push back a little bit on the independent narrative, because, you know, the idea... I know that, today, they’ve come out saying that, you know, Labor and Liberal are the Coles and Woolworths. And I do think that, in a political campaign, you always want to pitch yourself as the underdog, because Australians love backing an underdog. And I do think that the teals consistently push a narrative that they are the David, and the major parties are the Goliath. If you look back on the last election, the top seven highest, like, spending of electoral seats…the top seven were all teals. So, that is money in politics.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

OK, but the question is also about public funding of elections. This really increases public funding. We’re in a cost-of-living crisis. Claire, is it all good?

CLAIRE LEHMANN

I think it’s a better alternative than having billionaires, like Clive Palmer or Simon Holmes a Court, funnelling money into “independents” who are campaigning on single issues. So, when you’re getting independents who campaign and make promises to their electorate that they can solve a particular issue, whether it’s climate change or something else, it creates dysfunction in our parliament. 

The thing about the big parties, you might disagree with them, but they’re used...they know how to govern, which means they know about compromise, they know about pragmatism. When you’re getting token independents who are sort of...can be populist... And I’m not just picking on the teals. Like, Clive Palmer’s Senator Babet is a populist. There... I mean, what do they actually add to our parliament?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, Zoe will probably have something to say about that.

ZOE DANIEL

(LAUGHS) Oh, yeah. Let me at it.

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

ZOE DANIEL

I didn’t see any compromise or reasoned conversation between the two major parties for many years before I was, in effect, dragged kicking and screaming by my community to run because the crossbench had to create a bridge between those two combative entities where one says, “I want to do something,” and the other one says, “Nuh!” and there is zero collaboration between them. All they do is fight, roadblock, and we don’t get progress on big issues. 

And that’s why independents like me are there, because our communities got together and said enough is enough is enough. And they fundraised, and they scraped up money, and they got together volunteers, and they put on T-shirts, and they door-knocked, and they convinced people that there was a better way of doing politics. And I think the last three years has been incredibly productive in terms of the way the independents have dealt with the government, and long may it last. Please, let’s not go back to what it was before.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

OK. To that point, Zoe, that was made by Charlotte about how much money was spent in some of the seats that... You know, including yours, where the seats were won. Do you accept that critique that, you know, you spent a lot more money than some of the other campaigns?

ZOE DANIEL

Yeah, because my seat was a safe Liberal seat since Federation, and I had to build a brand in five and a half months to win an election against the juggernaut that is the Liberal Party. Now, if we level the playing field so we really all do have a fair crack at it, fine. But that’s not what this bill does. 

And indeed, I’m now an incumbent, so I have an incumbency advantage. I have an office, I have staff, I have the money that comes with each vote that the government is trying to get through if this bill passes. But what about new entrants, new independents across the country where communities are mobilising? They will be totally nobbled by this legislation. So, sure, get the big money out, but take the power of the major parties out, too, because this playing field that they’re creating is tilted in their favour.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Charlotte, on that, I just want to put to you... That is an interesting point because you say, you know, the unions and Labor do pretty well. Well, why are the Liberals agreeing, then? They must really be more worried about the teals than they are about the Labor Party.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Well, I think, in essence, like, everyone can agree, in a common-sense approach, I think, to a lot of the points Claire made, that trying to get money out of politics, we don’t want Australia to follow in the United States’ footsteps, where we have these massive super PACs and, you know, you essentially have people like Elon Musk massively controlling it. So, I think we agree with the sentiment, but I think the idea of individuals having caps is very important.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

And that’s... Just to, Zoe, your point there. You said, you know, you only had five and a half months to build a campaign, and you wanted, you know, to take the Liberal seat. But do you extend that same understanding to Senator Babet? Because do you support, the way that they spent all of the money in your seat, is that OK, someone like Clive Palmer spending the exact same, you know, or if not more for his candidates?

ZOE DANIEL

No. So, as I’ve said, I think there is a case for forms of caps. So, individual caps on someone like Clive Palmer being able to put $100 million in, for example. Absolutely agree with that. The issue is, once you start delving into how to actually do this – where do you set the cap of how much people can donate, where do you set the cap of how much people can spend, how do you create a level playing field between a total newcomer, out of nowhere, against a major party brand, that’s where it becomes really complicated. But in terms of that, you know, big money multi-billionaire throwing $100 million, $200 million in, absolutely, get rid of it.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

OK. Now it’s time for a question from Darren Martin.

DARREN MARTIN

Should leaders focus more on the immediate cost-of-living pressures or set ambitious targets for Australia’s climate future?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Tim?

TIM COSTELLO

I believe they’ve got to do both. I think the American election is proof that cost of living, even though the figures weren’t too bad under Joe Biden, but people felt they were not better off than four years ago. That killer question from Trump, actually, I think, was the reason, along with migration...immigration, immigrants, for the result.

Look, I’ve got five grandchildren. I actually am very, very worried. I woke up after the American election feeling quite existentially in grief about “Drill, baby, drill,” and what does that mean for my grandchildren. I felt the same existential grief for Ukrainians, for that matter, for Palestinians. I... So, there is this sense that there are bigger issues than just the cost of living.

But the guardrails in a democracy, we now know, are, if you’re going to have progress on climate change, you have to address cost of living, you have to have safe borders. You can’t have the back door open, as we saw with the Democrats, and it killed them. There are things you have to do. But to set one off against the other... We have to... We have to address both.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Claire.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

It’s a very tricky problem for politicians. Even though they would like...we would like to have it all, we would like to have lower power prices and increased clean energy, it doesn’t always work out that way, and the current government is experiencing this. You know, they promised that our power bills would be cut. They keep going up. So, it’s a huge problem for politicians. 

I think one thing that, you know, Australians should be mindful of is that, even if we get our emissions to zero, our emissions are cancelled out by China within 15 days. So, a year of our carbon emissions are about half a billion tonnes. China is emitting 11.5 billion tonnes a year. Now, all Western countries’ emissions are declining. All Western countries are doing the right thing. The United States’ emissions have been in decline, same with Australia. China’s keeps going up. They keep opening new coal power plants. So, there’s only so much we can do. So, I sometimes get concerned that Australians are internalising this issue a little bit too much. It’s not actually a problem we can solve on our own.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

I really think that when it comes to these... I think it’s a fantastic question because I think that progress is a privilege. Like, we only get to make progress on things when people have their day-to-day under control, because, otherwise, they do not have the bandwidth to think long-term about the warm and fuzzy things that will make the world a better place. If they cannot put food on the table, they simply can’t do that. And I think that we saw that in the United States. And I am very pro-renewables, and I really don’t want... You know, I want to save the planet. I don’t want it to be on the back burner.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

What do you think of nuclear power?

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

I am absolutely fine with having the conversation about nuclear. I think there is no reason...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

The conversation is one thing, but the actual offer...

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Well...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

...to do it.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

...I don’t actually... Like, I’m not an economist, so I don’t know, because the question is about the economy, so I wouldn’t be able to measure up the profit-loss balance. But I would say I would be very open to lifting the ban on nuclear. I know that, you know, places like the UK have had, you know, their own experiences with nuclear. All I want to say is that one of the only places that I can see, in a policy space that can work in a cost-of-living crisis, that is pro-renewables is home electrification. Because if people are incentivised to have solar and have batteries, they have instant gratification. Their next bill is lower. And that is the sort of thing that if you are trying to balance big, long-term, warm, fuzzy-feeling things, but...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yeah.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

...with practical measures in a cost-of-living crisis.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Zoe, your entire last campaign was really premised on a couple of things, but climate change was one of them. That question was really about the trade-off of what people are focused on. How are you approaching it now?

ZOE DANIEL

Climate change is not a warm and fuzzy thing. Climate change is survival. People are struggling with cost of living, and that absolutely has to be front and centre, but we can’t forget about this massive long-term crisis that we are facing, and how to deal with it. And also, cost of living and climate change are interconnected. One of the most underpinning elements of inflation, for example, is the cost of insurance. I don’t know about everyone in the audience, but I almost fainted when I got my insurance bills this year. And that’s because the insurance companies across the world are factoring in climate change. So we have to continue to address this as a long-term issue with renewable energy transition.

And I absolutely agree that part of that from a cost-of-living point of view is household electrification, solar, batteries – this is low-hanging fruit – and shift industry onto gas, initially, as we transition out, and then households will start to see their bills come down if we can get them electrified. So all of these things do not exist separately, and we do have to be able to deal with them all at once.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

It’s the last sitting fortnight of the entire year. What a year it’s been. Zoe, thanks for making the show tonight. Really appreciate your time.

ZOE DANIEL

Thank you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

That’s Zoe Daniel, the independent member for Goldstein in Victoria.

And if you’re just joining us, you’re watching Q+A with Jon Ronson, Charlotte Mortlock, Tim Costello and Claire Lehmann.

Next, we’ll hear a question from Dar... No, we’re up to Dylan Peters. Hello, Dylan.

DYLAN PETERS

Hello. My question is, does Trump’s engagement with these podcasters like Joe Rogan endorse the permissibility of these hypermasculine ideals, and, in turn, what effect does this have on young men in Australia?

JON RONSON

Well, I think the answer is yes. I think Trump, in the same way that Trump courted Alex Jones in 2016, which seemed like a very counterintuitive and frankly terrible idea, it worked out well for him. And Trump has done it again, courting people like Joe Rogan. I mean, the fact is, it’s a strange time to be a man.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Is it? Why?

JON RONSON

Well, I mean, all sorts of reasons. A lot of the things that men, both privileged and unprivileged, have relied on all these years, certainties, have crumbled. You know, factor...for working-class men, factory work. You know, those Rust Belt towns are crumbling. And then, you know, these sort of disenfranchised men then turn on the TV and adverts on TV... You know, everyone’s watched, you know, men in adverts are basically all portrayed as, like, doofuses who can’t get anything right and have to be bailed out by their more capable wives. That’s basically how men are treated in adverts.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, that’s the premise of The Simpsons, isn’t it?

JON RONSON

Well, yeah, sure. I mean, it certainly, it certainly grew up, you know, as a result of The Simpsons and Married... With Children. That’s when you got a big renaissance there. It’s a weird time. You know, it’s a weird time to be a man.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

OK. It’s a weird time to be a man. Just remind us who Alex Jones is, too, for those who...

JON RONSON

Oh, Alex...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

If people aren’t necessarily in particular internets, you know how everyone is in their own algorithm. I’m not sure what algorithms are here.

JON RONSON

Right. Well, I was actually the first person ever to write about Alex Jones, when he was 26. Me and him snuck into this secret club in Northern California called Bohemian Grove, where we witnessed world leaders having a ritual that culminated in a papier-mâché effigy being thrown into a bonfire in front of a giant stone owl. Now, I know that sounds odd, but that is something that me and Alex...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Just a regular night.

JON RONSON

Right. That was a great night of my life, believe me. Alex at the time was, was a kind of, you know, local conspiracy theorist in Texas. However, he grew and grew and grew, and he’s now the world’s leading conspiracy theorist. Trump went on his show in 2016 and courted his audience, who didn’t vote, but voted for Trump. And then Alex started hounding the parents of children who were murdered in the Sandy Hook School shooting. So he became a much more nefarious figure. Because, actually, Alex is a narcissist, so he doesn’t care about the truth.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So he’s a narcissist, too?

JON RONSON

Well, I mean, liter... I mean, in his custody hearing, he was diagnosed by a...by somebody in court as having a narcissistic disorder. So, like, that’s not me, you know, armchair-diagnosing him. He actually is a narcissist. So, yeah. So, and now he’s got a billion-dollar judgement against him by the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook.

TIM COSTELLO

Mm.

JON RONSON

And so his media empire is in the balance.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm. Dylan, I want to bring you back in. You’ve asked this question about these kind of hypermasculine ideals and the impact they have on men in Australia. What concerns you?

DYLAN PETERS

Well, I’m a high school teacher, so I guess what I’m beginning to see in my classroom is sort of the regurgitation of those statements, without much forethought or knowledge, by young men in particular.

JON RONSON

Yeah. Can I say...? I mean, this is the problem that, you know, these young boys are all gravitating towards the likes of Andrew Tate and these kind of awful manosphere people. And that’s because, I think, to a great extent, it’s because the tech billionaires, they want us all fighting with each other. They want identity politics down here. They want men hating women and women hating men, because that means people like Elon Musk just get richer and richer. The real problem in society right now is class. It’s not identity, but it doesn’t benefit our leaders to make...for us to want to think that. So, instead, they get us... So it’s bread and circuses. They want to get us all fighting down here.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yeah.

JON RONSON

And... Yeah.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

And is it working, Claire? Are we all just fighting? We’re all in our little camps.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

I think so. But there’s really interesting data that’s come out of the US election, and it doesn’t neatly fit in with our identity politics narratives. For example, white males actually moved away from Donald Trump at the population level, and Hispanic and black male voters had a huge increase in their support for Trump. And, you know, why is that? There’s lots of different reasons, but one reason is because Hispanic and black men are more traditionally masculine than, you know, white, middle class, progressive men. 

And I think, you know, there’s been an issue... There’s been an... They’re more comfortable with notions of masculinity. That’s what the survey data shows. I think there’s... You know, we have demonised maleness. We have...we have demonised traditional masculinity. And so, when there is a vacuum, you get these people like Andrew Tate coming in and filling it.

JON RONSON

Yeah, absolutely.

TIM COSTELLO

Can I just say, for so many men, the adjective always before masculinity is now ‘toxic’. And I think we know that our wives, our partners are smarter than us. They’re earning more than us. There is this sense of a profound shift from our fathers’ day, and there is profound insecurity. And speaking to teachers up on the Gold Coast, I remember a female teacher stood up, she said, “Look at me, I’m five foot tall. The Year 10 boys in my class terrify me, have me in tears. They are all watching Andrew Tate.”

JON RONSON

Mm.

TIM COSTELLO

“I do not know what to do.”

JON RONSON

Yeah.

TIM COSTELLO

And then right around the room, other teachers started saying the same, particularly women. So there are toxic males, but it’s not all males. And it is interesting, I think the under-30s men, Joe Biden won them by 15 points. This year, under-30s men, Trump won by 14 points. So the flip for under-30s men is very, very dramatic. Something is going on, and we have to address it.

JON RONSON

Yeah.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Charlotte?

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

I was just going to say, Tim, you spoke to, like, that sense that women are, you know, doing all of these things. I think what has happened is that... And I spend my time talking about how women are systemically, you know, disadvantaged in politics. And I definitely... Women are still disadvantaged in a lot of systems.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So, yeah. So, apparently, like, this is...there’s a disconnect going on here.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Yes. I know, So...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So, we’re hearing, you know, men feel like women are earning more.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Because...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

But then, women aren’t running the companies...

JON RONSON

Yeah.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

I think what it is, though, it’s the cultural aspect, and, at the moment... So, I think in the systems, women still aren’t earning the same, we’re still not represented in parliament in the same numbers. And what we are seeing, though, is that, culturally, women have become superior. And I do think that we see that in pop culture, in a lot of different places.

JON RONSON

Mm.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

And I just think that, as a woman who is very vocal on women’s issues, I am...I do rea...it weighs heavily on me that you can be pro-women without being anti-men, and we do not need to demonise men.

And I think there is something funny going on at the moment – and I think this goes to your point – where young men are being kind of infantilised as well by women saying, “This is the podcast you can listen to. This is the...” you know, where... And I don’t think that’s helpful. I really think that’s counterproductive to what we’re trying to achieve.

JON RONSON

Yeah. And as the author... Yeah. No, I totally agree. As the author Richard Reeves says in his book Of Boys And Men, the fact that the top rungs have male feet all over them is scant comfort for the rest of the men who are more and more disenfranchised.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yeah, it’s a really powerful point.

JON RONSON

I think that’s absolutely true. And the fact is, you know, to a large extent, it’s just the way the world is going. When the agrarian age made way for the industrial and post-industrial ages, I think men were very good at persuading everybody the fact that we were very good in fields as farmers made us natural leaders in offices, too. But it clearly wasn’t true. And the fact is, women are better at sitting still, paying attention. The things that are important in offices now are values which are better suited for women.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

You’ve all equally sat still, waited for your turn. I just won’t accept that.

Now we have a question from Oskar Edwardes.

OSKAR EDWARDES

How will governments and other organisations engage with youth when the youth social media ban comes into effect?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Oh! Oskar, that is a good question. Oskar, I’d just love to hear from you about your use of social media. Do you use it?

OSKAR EDWARDES

Yeah, I use... My dad made me wait until I was 13, which was the Meta instituted recommended age, to get Instagram and to get Facebook. I use it a lot to connect with people who work in youth advocacy. I’m a member of the Victorian Student Representative Council. I’ve worked with the Department of Premier and Cabinet and Department of Education, all things that were advertised to youth through social media.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So you’re on social media, legally by the current standard. And all the connections you’ve made have been through social media.

OSKAR EDWARDES

A lot of them, yes. A lot of the amazing networking opportunities that are available for people my age, we find about through social media. The days of people coming into school or signing up to emailing lists aren’t there anymore.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Right. That’s fascinating. And do you find it a sort of... Well, I’m going to use the word that we’ve used before – do you find it a toxic place or is it a positive place? Perhaps both.

OSKAR EDWARDES

The way that I’ve put it before is social media is like a forest. It’s a beautiful place with beautiful nature. But if you turn behind the wrong tree, there might be a bear waiting for you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm.

TIM COSTELLO

(LAUGHS)

PATRICIA KARVELAS

That is the perfect description. And can I say that’s also the case for adults, right, on social media? Claire, I want to bring you in ‘cause the question that Oskar has asked is a really important one. How exactly are those campaigns going to be run once social media is banned?

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Well, I don’t think that this law will actually be enforceable. And I think the government knows that. They just want to pass it to give parents a bit more authority around the kitchen table. I really don’t think it’s going to be enforceable. And, perhaps, you know, parents will have the discretion to allow, you know, young people like you to use social media. However, if they’ve got a daughter who’s spending nine hours a day on Instagram and she’s, you know, developing a complex about how she looks, you know, that...the legislation will give parents a bit more, you know, backing to get the children who are having problematic experiences off the platform.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Right. So you think it would be used as a tool?

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Yeah. Yeah.

Like, you don’t expect it actually to work?

CLAIRE LEHMANN

I don’t think it’s going to be... I don’t see how anyone’s going to be able to enforce it.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Are you going to stay on it?

OSKAR EDWARDES

Um...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, I’m asking you if you’re going to break the law because you’re nearly 15. So, no, you’re going... You’re not going to break the law.

OSKAR EDWARDES

I wouldn’t break the law. We...as young people, we don’t get opportunity to have a voice very often. And when we do, it’s so rare. And social media is literally a platform to give people a voice, and to ban it for people under the age of 16, it’s taking away a part of their voice.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, I’m glad you’ve had a voice here.

Charlotte, this is the kind of conundrum, isn’t it?

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

My...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

I mean, I don’t...I like that Oskar’s...

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Yes.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

...finding opportunities for...

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Oskar, I like it, too. And good on you for being so involved, because I think that, we were having this conversation about, you know, the failure of institutions, and good on you for being so proactive in finding a community. So...

JON RONSON

Yes.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

...that’s amazing. However, my hatred for social media runs so deep. It’s really hard for people, I think, to imagine a world where social media exists, but it’s not with the current social media giants. The current social media giants have done nothing. They’ve done nothing to protect you and nothing to protect grown adults. It has led to polarisation and to, literally, young people suiciding, and they haven’t cared. 

Bo Burnham, who’s a brilliant brain, he’s an actor, he said recently that we used to colonise land. That was the way countries got rich. You would invade a country and you would steal their resources. And now our brain and our attention is being colonised. That is the capital that they are going after, and they are publicly listed companies and they will never stop. Growth is all they want, and they don’t care about anyone’s health. 

What we can do is get an innovative Australian company to come through and create a platform where young people can be, and I don’t want any young people that have found a great community online...I don’t want them to lose that community. I’m so pro-community. But I’m just saying we don’t have to accept that it is this or nothing.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm.

JON RONSON

Mm.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

It’s a really...

TIM COSTELLO

So I think, if I had my way, Oskar, I would ban social media for everyone under 16

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Me too...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Oh.

TIM COSTELLO

...except for you.

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

TIM COSTELLO

But you are...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

But then he’d have to talk to old people!

TIM COSTELLO

...you are the exception.

Look, I am very, very worried that it is a dopamine hit for developing brains, that the rise of mental illness with – in parallel with – the rise of social media is... I can’t prove causation, but it really worries me. I totally agree with Claire – it’s unenforceable. An eight-year-old is going to get around this with a VPN and set up a Facebook with their age, we all know that. But I actually think, such is the anxiety of parents, and my son-in-law and his wife, who have three kids, just said, “I don’t care if our kids hate us, they’re not going to have social media to 16.” They felt... This was last year they were saying this to me, because they’ve just seen the damage. 

I personally feel that saying it’s unenforceable is not a good enough reason. Having a conversation and saying we’re doing it... Look, we have laws against burglary, we still have lots of burglaries. We still have lots of murders though we have laws. Lots of laws are unenforceable.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Mm.

TIM COSTELLO

Speeding. But I do think giving parents who are profoundly anxious, with good reason, an opportunity to have the conversation... But you’re the exception, Oskar.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Yep. Keep you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, that’s the argument, right? The... I think the Prime Minister even used the comparison with alcohol laws. I mean, you’re underage, you’re not meant to drink, but that doesn’t mean no-one underage has ever drunk, right? Have you not seen some of these events? So, Jon...

JON RONSON

Yeah.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

...we’re having this big conversation, as you can see, in our country, to ban social media for under-16s.

JON RONSON

And I know this conversation is beginning in America too. A book’s recently come out – The Anxious Generation – I think...

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Yep.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Mm.

JON RONSON

...which is calling for a similar kind of ban. I’ve got to say, look, I despise social media with the same venom that you do...

CHARLOTTE

Thank you.

JON RONSON

...I’m happy to say. I don’t think banning is the right answer. And let me say something positive. It may be... It’s reaching for a little tiny nugget of positivity amidst all the negativity, but I was talking to somebody the other day who said that their 12-year-old kid is much more savvy about social media than their older siblings, because when it comes to quote-unquote cancel culture, I think what the young were doing was creating a set of rules that were impossible to live up to. They were creating a kind of draconian rule, and their younger siblings were coming along and thinking, “We don’t want this.” You know? “We don’t want to be walking around like in a minefield. If we say something slightly wrong, we’re going to get destroyed for it. We don’t want this.” And I suppose that’s my long-winded way of saying that I hope and think that, as we grow up with social media, young people are going to become wiser and more savvy, they’re going to re-adapt and...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

But the whole... Charlotte’s point that it is so addictive and that it’s the growth strategy...

JON RONSON

Oh, it’s terrible.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

...we’re expecting a lot of them to just kind of rise above this crazy addictive thing, right?

JON RONSON

Yeah. A ban’s never going to work. There’s not a... There’s no way is it going to work. But, you know, but what I’m saying is, I rather hope and think that, as we grow up with social media... When I wrote my book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, which is all about just how terrible social media was, I had this line in it where I said that we were like – on Twitter – we were like toddlers crawling towards a gun. Now we’re like teenagers walking towards a gun. I think, you know, as we get older and as we get more used to it, I hope that our relationship with social media is going to get slightly less dysfunctional.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

But just on the concept of the bans are never going to work – we all think the bans won’t work because we’re seeing it through the prism of everyone having an iPhone, and iPhones we can’t regulate because they’re owned by Apple. But an example of hardware is, like, the Pinwheel phone – that does. Like, if you give... If people stop buying iPhones for their teens and start buying them things like Pinwheels, which is restricted, they can’t get around that.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yeah, that’s a really good point. And you try and tell your teenagers they can’t have... Come to my house.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

I’ll let you know in 14 years.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yes. Come to my house. Our next question comes from Afrah Basha.

AFRAH BASHA

As a young 19-year-old Liberal woman in today’s political climate, I increasingly find myself to be one of the few young women in the Liberal Party. Some have attributed the lack of like-minded conservative women to the growing subscription to woke leftist ideologies, and the loss of traditional conservative values. However, it is important to note that misogyny also plays a part in pushing women further away from the party. What can we do to encourage more women to join the Liberal Party and see them in positions of power?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Well, Charlotte, this is basically what you do.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Yes.

TIM COSTELLO

Mm.

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Yeah. So, I think it’s a great question, and I never, like, shy away from our issues as a party. But I will say that we are... I can see improvements, and I know that, you know, in the media, people might not want to be too generous to us, but we are trying, and we are starting to see results in that. And one of the ways that, you know, Hilma’s Network is trying to contribute to that is, about eight weeks ago now, we launched our own podcast. It’s not one of the crazy ones, don’t worry. (LAUGHS) And it profiles our female Liberal candidates ahead of the next election. And that is one of the ways. I don’t think it’s also, just to, like, bang on about social media again, like, having these super digestible, bite-sized politicians, we actually need longer forms, ways to get to know our politicians. And that is one of the ways we are proactively trying to create something that brings it to people wherever they’re at, whether you’re walking a dog, commuting to work or, you know...

PATRICIA KARVELAS

So, Afrah, I want to bring you back in. So, you joined the Liberal Party, but you’re saying you feel a little outnumbered, I’m guessing.

AFRAH BASHA

Yes. That’s true.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

What do you think would work to bring more women like you in?

AFRAH BASHA

I think an honest conversation with women, women speaking to women, I think, would be better, because I feel like women just understand how other women think, rather than just a man speaking to them and mansplaining things.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Right. There’s a bit of mansplaining going on, is there?

AFRAH BASHA

A little. (LAUGHS)

PANELLISTS

(LAUGHS)

CHARLOTTE MORTLOCK

Well, I will always make myself available to have a very honest conversation with you, and I will not sugarcoat it, because there are still systemic issues that we are facing as a party. But I can promise you, I’m trying really hard, and there are other women who are too. And I really feel like that connective energy is starting to actually pay off. We are speaking out about it, we are finding our voice, and I genuinely am sorry if it hasn’t been a good experience for you, or if it hasn’t been as evolved as it should be by now. But, yeah, I would love you to come to a Hilma’s event next time there’s one in Melbourne.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

OK. No recruiting onstage. Claire, we’re seeing a lot of political polarisation that’s gendered as well, aren’t we? Women have been drifting to the left and men to the right. That’s partly part of the story, I’m guessing, with recruitment too.

CLAIRE LEHMANN

Yeah, it could be. I think the Liberal Party can do two things. It can treat women who are already among its ranks a bit better. I see Moira Deeming in the audience, she’s been treated absolutely horribly by the Victorian Labor, er, Liberal Party. And, so, the second thing the Liberal Party can do is just have better ideas. The biggest issue with the Liberal Party is not gender, it’s generational. There’s a lack of young people. The number one issue in this country is housing. The Liberal Party needs to make sure that young people can buy houses so they can start families. If young people can’t buy houses and start families, then they won’t become conservative. So, young people become...

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

CLAIRE LEHMANN

(CHUCKLES) ...become more conservative once they have something to conserve. If you don’t have anything to conserve, there’s...why would you ever become a conservative, right?

PANELLISTS

(LAUGH)

CLAIRE LEHMANN

(CHUCKLES) There has to be a vision. I don’t see the current Liberal Party speaking to young people about this issue. It seems to be a party for baby boomers, really. And once the Liberal Party has better ideas and they can speak to younger people, I think we’ll get more women on board.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

OK, well, Claire has shouted you out, Moira Deeming, and so I now have to bring you in because... Blame Claire! You are a member of the parliament in Victoria, for those who don’t know. And you are... You know, you’ve been in a kind of ongoing legal battle with your leader. But, in terms of the Liberal Party, do you think it’s a welcoming place for women?

MOIRA DEEMING

Absolutely. The members have been fantastic, the federals have been fantastic, and there are lots of people inside that have been fantastic.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

And are you going to make a federal tilt? I’ve heard rumours.

MOIRA DEEMING

I’m sure you’ve heard all kinds of rumours.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Just that one.

MOIRA DEEMING

I am where I am and I’m happy where I am. Obviously, I don’t want to be on the crossbench.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yep. What do you make to...make of Afrah’s commentary?

MOIRA DEEMING

Oh, I’d love her to touch base with me outside of this public arena. And, look, all political parties have this kind of thing going on. I think it’s about power. I think gender is an excuse. I think there are a lot of excuses made for people just trying to hold on to power. I don’t think there is always narcissism going on in politicians, but I have seen some, I’ll admit.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yep. Alright. Thanks, Moira. And we’ve got a final question tonight from Claudia Haemel.

CLAUDIA HAEMEL

Given that the majority of Australians want a full ban on gambling advertising, what does the delay say about the power of the media and their political influence in this country?

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Tim Costello.

TIM COSTELLO

I thought it might be me. So, the power of vested interests is extraordinary. The truth is that not only do we have the greatest gambling losses and greatest gambling harm – gambling losses per capita – but when it comes to sports betting, we have the greatest gambling losses in the world in sports betting as well. Four times the losses of the UK, Jon, a million ads on free-to-air TV. It took a Victorian Labor woman, who sadly lost her battle with cancer, Peta Murphy, to call it out. The last attempt to actually get reform – gambling reform – from a Labor leader was another Victorian, Julia Gillard. 

And I’m saying this because one of the reasons we can’t get reform is New South Wales Labor is particularly captured by the vested interests. New South Wales has 35% of all the world’s pokies in pubs and clubs. 35%. New South Wales Labor has Labor pokies, Randwick and then down the Canberra Club, 30 million in pokies revenue a year, $130 million of assets. No democratic party in the world except New South Wales Labor has pokies interest, so there’s a profound conflict of interest. And I know that when Gillard tried to reform as Prime Minister, it was New South Wales Labor members who defeated her reform. That was a cashless card on pokies. 

So, we are in this situation where, really, with a Prime Minister from New South Wales and the minister leading this reform from New South Wales, we’re up against a profound capture. They should divest of their gambling interests, and they should then say to vested interests, “72% of the public want it.” I was at the Nine AGM. Nine’s opening statement was, “Australia lives at Nine. Since 1956, Australia lives and loves Nine.” My first question was, if Australia lives at Nine, when 72% of Australians want a full betting ad…gambling ad ban, why don’t you get on board? “Oh, well, you know, it’s profit.” It’s even worse with Seven. And Kerry Stokes, who owns the only paper in Western Australia with all the AFL ads...

So, it’s powerful vested interests that are still grooming our kids. We’ll get a partial ban. But as Steve Cannane, who works with PK, has shown, that won’t be in the evenings when seven out of ten of the ads are being shown and kids are watching family-friendly programs. And I finish with Stewart Kenny, who founded Paddy Power, owner of Sportsbet. He said, “If you want to protect kids, you have to have a full ad ban. If you want to protect wealthy bookies, you have a partial ban.” Sadly, I think Albo’s going to go with that.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Can I say, I don’t see a bill listed, and it’s the final two weeks of parliament, Tim Costello. Isn’t there meant to be a bill?

TIM COSTELLO

Absolutely. We were promised... You know, it’s over 19 months, and literally there are members of the Labor caucus, very principled members – Mike Freelander, who’s a New South Wales Labor MP, has really been brave and has stood up for it. I don’t think they want to bring it to caucus because they know there’s going to be pushback, because it’s the right thing to do. I think the ban on six...under-16s on social media, which I’ve told you I support, is weird when you actually can do something about banning gambling ads and you won’t.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Yeah, well... Thank you very much.

And that’s all we have time for. Thank you to our panel: Jon Ronson, Charlotte Mortlock, Tim Costello and Claire Lehmann, and earlier, independent MP Zoe Daniel joined us from Parliament House in Canberra.

Next week, I’ll be with you from Sydney for our final Q+A of the year, with a panel that will include former Australian diplomat and specialist on China Geoff Raby, and professor at the ANU’S National Security College, George Brandis.

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Q+A Finale in Sydney 

Monday, November 25 

Register to be in the audience: abc.net.au/qanda

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Head to our website to register to be in the audience in Sydney.

Thanks for sharing your questions and your stories. Have a great night.