Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 17 November 2025

In this interview, Colleen Harkin appeared on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on net zero.

All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.

Below is a transcript of the interview.

Rita Panahi:

Joining me now for more on this is Institute of Public Affairs research fellow, Colleen Harkin and former Labour MP, Michael Danby. Colleen, I’ll start with you, this is typical behaviour from the bedwetters, they only destabilise and undermine. Now, they appear to be fighting amongst themselves, so moderates are fighting amongst themselves.

Rita Panahi:

It’s not surprising though. I mean, the issue here is that for the last two elections, polls have gone to the constituents with no fight in them about this whole net zero thing. And Sussan Ley sort of tried to play the role of being everything to every one, which means that you’re in no man’s land, you’re not standing for anything for anyone.

So the internal machinations of how this is going to work out, don’t surprise me, Andrew Hastie has shown leadership and it shows that if you show strong leadership and you show conviction that people will follow, people will join behind you.

And the average person in Australia actually just wants reliable, affordable energy. They don’t know what net zero even means. I think they think it means something about climate but don’t really understand that it has impact on higher prices, weaken industry and has no impact on climate issues. So the issue now is for the liberals to go out and sell it, explain it to people, and sell it hard to have any chance of actually getting through with why they’ve changed this policy. And all power to them for doing it. It was the right thing to do.

Rita Panahi:

Well, it took a long time to get there, just like the voice. But you’re right. Most Australians probably don’t know the impact net zero policies have because they haven’t had a major political party actually prosecute the case. Michael, in my mind, Andrew Hastie is a formidable opponent. Do you think Labour would be more concerned with a Hastie-led coalition than a Sussan Ley-led coalition?

Michael Danby:

Well, they claim they’re looking forward to a Hastie leadership, but I think they’ve made a big mistake if they do. Look the no net zero people in the Liberal Party have a majority already. If a few moderates join them, whoever is the alternative to Sussan Ley will easily win. But the problem is, will there be a no contest between Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie? Will they agree on a joint ticket?

I must say my experience of Angus Taylor is he just doesn’t cut through. Hastie has one problem that is that comment on immigration, which is falsely portrayed by the Labour Party’s opposition to immigration. But what it’s very useful to disguising is their campaign against the Chinese vote, the Chinese Australian vote. So they think that he’s very vulnerable on that and it’s a big problem for the Liberal Party. How do they get round? What happened to people like Mr. Wolahan and Menzies?

Rita Panahi:

Yeah, you’re right, that is a growing demographic, but I think broadly, Andrew Hastie’s comments about immigration would be enormously popular. So there’s also that to consider. And again, I think like net zero, probably even more so than net zero, Colleen, that is an issue where the Australian public really haven’t had a say. Poll after poll says that majority of Australians want to see some dramatic reductions in immigration, and yet both sides are continuing with this big Australia mindset. Even if the Libs targets are a little bit lower than Labour, they’re still fairly hefty.

Rita Panahi:

Yeah, sure, of course. And look, the average Australian has shown their voice in all of those marches that have been around the country. They’re not anti-immigration. They make it very clear that they’re anti-unplanned and mass immigration. I think it’s a very easy clarification to make if you get the lines right. People are not anti-immigration. They’re just simply this sort of thousands of people who are arriving and we don’t have the infrastructure to cope with it at the moment.

Rita Panahi:

Now, it has been revealed almost 500 Australians attended the COP 30 Talk Fest in Brazil this year. Among them was, of course, climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen, who has been pushing for Australia to host next year’s COP 31 conference in Adelaide. Michael, what can I say, this seems like a monumental waste of taxpayer money.

Michael Danby:

Congratulations to all the people at Sky who’ve exposed this. 500 people going all the way from Australia to a climate alarm conference. You couldn’t write a script like it out of Monty Python. It’s outrageous if government and other institutions’ money has been used just as you suggest, Rita. And I’d also like to know how many of these people took holidays to Machu Picchu after they finished with their conference.

Rita Panahi:

That is a very good question indeed.

Michael Danby:

Haven’t they heard of Zoom?

Rita Panahi:

Well, you’re all coming in through on Zoom right now, and I think if you can do it, I don’t know why they can’t. And these are people who are obsessed with global warming, Colleen, so you would think they’d had be very motivated not to get on a plane. But talking about waste of taxpayer money and Aboriginal academic has criticised the Albanese government’s so-called First Nations People Ambassador after he received a new contract extension, which we’ll see him paid $400,000 a year in his first 20 months in the job.

Ambassador Justin Mohammed amassed an overseas travel bill of more than 250,000, that’s on top of his sizeable salary that included trips to Switzerland. He went there three times, five trips to the US and many visits to Pacific Island nations. Aboriginal academic and human rights lawyer, Hannah MacLeod told the Daily Telegraph that the ambassador role had a documented history of extensive and expensive travel and hotels without proof of real outcomes to improve the lives of Aboriginal people.

Colleen, she also claimed it was promoting a positive image of Australia on the global stage, contrary to the evidence about the government’s failure on closing the gap. How do you see this role? It’s always confused me. It’s always confused me what even the purpose of this role is.

Rita Panahi:

Yeah, I’m not sure what the purpose is and I’m very confused about what a First Nations ambassador has to do with foreign policy and visiting all of these countries. The other thing is that apparently, it has an office of 10 staff, so there’s a lot of money that’s been channelled into this. And I’d like to see what are the KPIs, what is the performance standard and what is it actually supposed to achieve. Because we talk a lot about closing the gap, but I don’t see any relevance between this and actually on the ground issues with Aboriginal communities.

Rita Panahi:

Absolutely. Michael, why do we need a First Nations People ambassador to be globetrotting around the world, and how can their message on foreign affairs be any different to the Foreign Affairs Minister? Why would we have two competing messages coming out of Australia?

Michael Danby:

People like this and our eSafety Commissioner who spent nearly $500,000 on international travel are going to blow up in the face of the government at some point. The government should get control of all of these people and restrict their budgets to what might be reasonable for an Aboriginal ambassador if we have to have one. Good point, Rita.

A few people in the Pacific Islands might need to see him personally, but the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva doesn’t need to see him three times a year. It’s a scam. And all of us are in favour of indigenous people being treated equally, but I think it sort of, as that Aboriginal academic has pointed out, it denigrates the whole issue to have a bloke spending money like this being paid like this just as it does with the eSafety Commissioner

Rita Panahi:

To Victoria now where a convicted murderer has filed legal action against the Department of Justice for taking away his right to eat Vegemite. Yes, Andre McKechnie says he was refused Vegemite and he claims it’s a breach of his human rights, because it’s denying him his Australian culture. Michael, Shadow Corrections Minister David Southwick has slammed the legal action saying prison cells aren’t meant to act as hotels. How do you see this consequential issue?

Michael Danby:

This is plainly ridiculous. We should have magistrates and judges enforcing the existing laws of Victoria, not going soft on people with ridiculous claims like this. This is an example of the woke madness of the prison system and the Victorian legal system in general. We’ve got a Premier who promised to take the masks off these people who are terrifying people in the city still. And the police have to politely go up to them and say, “Well, could you please take that mask off?” Of course, it won’t happen. So it’s an empty promise, just like the machete bins and all of the soft treatment of the legal system that the current Victorian government is proceeding with them. The people that affects the worst are the poor people of Victoria. People who are not on high incomes who this Labour government is meant to stand up for. Not all of its socialists left woke nonsense.

Rita Panahi:

Well, crime is shaping up to be a major issue at the next state election here. Do you think the Premier has won some ground with these new tough youth laws with the adult crime, adult time? Though they are, when you look at the detail fairly flaky, there seems to be some major loopholes for judges to get around that.

Rita Panahi:

Well, I think that’s the thing is that Professor Merkur wrote an article the other day that said, “A knife hurts whether it’s come from a 16-year-old or a 45-year-old.” The issue is the law exists and the Labour-appointed judges in the county court who may well hear these cases is supposed to apply the law the same. So it’s not about tweaking at the edges. There is wholesale reform that’s required, and Jacinta Allan has taken a long time to actually take some of these issues seriously, and I think she’s still just sort of trying to tweak in smoke and mirrors. I don’t think the actual issue of what’s going on is genuinely being addressed.

Rita Panahi:

Yep. Michael Danby, Colleen Harkin, thank you so much for your time.

This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia from 18 November 2025 has been edited for clarity.