Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 19 January 2026

Rita Panahi:

Let’s bring in the panel joining me now as Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Colleen Harkin and the head of advocacy at Women’s Forum Australia, Stephanie Bastiaan. Ladies, this is a grim result for the coalition. Their identity crisis, their weakness on several issues is seeing One Nation record an extraordinary rise in support, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

This is true. I mean, despite what some of the social media commentary is saying, Pauline Hanson’s not going to be the prime minister anytime soon, but it is a warning shock for both of the major parties that the average punter out there is completely dissatisfied with the leadership that is not being shown by either of the majors. The really interesting component of this is whether One Nation can provide a really weighty counterbalance to the Greens in time to come. Victoria, with its latest cohort of signing up to One Nation, apparently that’s their greatest membership now, which is very interesting. And they’re intending to run a candidate in every seat in the next Victorian election, which is later this year. So there’ll be a few litmus tests along the way before the next federal election.

Rita Panahi:

And Stephanie, this news poll backs up the recent demos poll we saw just a week or so ago that showed the ALP on 29% primary vote. One Nation and the Liberal National Coalition on 23%. And what was particularly fascinating with that result was the two party preferred figures. When it was Labour and the Coalition, Labour is four points ahead in the two party preferred figures. But when it’s Labour and One Nation, well, it’s all tied up 50-50 each. Sussan Ley and the liberal front bench, they must be terribly worried about what this all means.

Stephanie Bastiaan:

Look, and I think they should be. I mean, it’s very clear that the liberals have lost their way. They don’t know what they’re standing for and they’ve lost their base with it. Pauline Hanson is consistent, she’s clear. She approaches every issue from a very centre-right perspective. You know what she’s going to say because she comes from a strong philosophical background. I think that the coalition should be worried because they’re clearly losing votes, they’re losing their base, and that’s a clear indication that they’re suffering from a lack of leadership.

I agree with Colleen. I don’t think One Nation’s going to form government anytime soon, but I am glad that there is another dominant force in the political debate that’s no longer the Greens. For too long, the Greens have been dragging both major parties to the left. The coalition should have known better than to buy into it, but I’m pleased that One Nation are now becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Rita Panahi:

And Colleen, what about the notion, and it’s something I spoke about last year, of the nationals and One Nation. If there is more of a fracture between the more conservative MPs who want to see the liberals really differentiate from Labour, and then you’ve got the moderates who are really … I mean, that should be in the Tills, some of them. What do you think about that? If that phenomenon continues and you’ve got the liberals sort of at sea, if the nationals and One Nation get together, it could be quite a formidable team.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. I don’t know if that’s just your idea or whether you’ve heard it from somewhere, but it would be a-

Rita Panahi:

I like to think I started it. When I mentioned it, no one else had talked about it last year, so I’m running with that. That’s the Rita plan. Thank you. Go.

Colleen Harkin:

But it would be a really interesting component because the trouble with the Liberal Party is grappling with at the moment is what does it stand for anymore? And if the centre-right people were to leave and to join with the nationals, I think that the Liberal Party would actually implode. It really has to get its act together, work out again what it stands for, who it’s talking to, who is its audience, because showing it being Labour light clearly hasn’t worked for it. It has gone backwards in the polls for several years. Every time they acquiesce the space and move to the left, they lose. So the average person out there is dying to see them get their act together.

Rita Panahi:

Now, let’s move on to Australia Day and the Sunday Telegraph has revealed the federal government body in charge of promoting Australia Day has handed a taxpayer funded grant to a community group to hold a Survival Day event. The Blue Mountains Aboriginal Culture and Resource Centre will hold a culturally safe Survival Day 2026 on January 26th. I mean, really. Colleen, can you believe the National Australia Day Council is advertising this event as an Australia Day Family Fun Day when it’s going to be anything but? And I think there will be people showing up expecting to celebrate Australia Day and being confronted with this Survival Day.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. It kind of tells you everything you need to know that they’re not being transparent about it, that our taxpayer dollar is being used, again, for grievance. Australians are absolutely sick to death of the negative Nancy stuff. I mean, IPA research recently shows that 76% of Australians want to celebrate Australia Day. And what’s interesting about it too, is it’s been driven a lot by the younger generation. 18 to 24 year olds have resoundingly rejected the corporate notion that you could take the public holiday on another day with 72% of those young people saying, “No, Australia Day is Australia Day. We need to celebrate it.” We’re sick of the negative Nancys. Get on board. We want the positive, optimistic, lucky country back.

Rita Panahi:

Well, the overwhelming majority of Australians, Stephanie, do support Australia Day. They don’t want to change the date, but our taxes continue to fund this activism. We’ve also got our taxes going to a team of academics to conduct a research project into changing the date, just a lazy 1.5 million being thrown for that bit of activism. The culture warriors of the left are not going to stop with this issue, are they?

Stephanie Bastiaan:

No, but I think like most of these woke issues that we’re grappling with at the moment, there is a huge divide between the bureaucracy that’s tax funded and your everyday punter. And I think that if you have … This goes back to the voice campaign. People want indigenous communities to do well, but they want all Australians to be treated equally.

And for a long time, they couldn’t say anything. Institutions, education systems slammed Australia Day, made people feel really guilty about celebrating it, and there was a real dying down of it. But then we had the voice debate and people could quietly make their voice heard, and they slammed the inequality down, the bias of the debate. And since then, we’ve seen a rise in Australia Day pushing back on big corporates like Woolworths who refused to sell merchandise. The people have spoken and they’re pushing back, and I think it’s fabulous. So everyone should get out next Monday and celebrate Australia Day.

Rita Panahi:

We’re going to have a leading Australian businessman on the show later in the week who is really doing something special to promote Australia Day. And it’s good to see that from the corporate sector because I think they’ve been terribly guilty of giving into this loud minority. Now, I don’t know why we continue to throw taxpayer money at this activism because there’s plenty of people online willing to do it for free, including this lady.

Instagram post:

The 26th is coming up and a lot of people might be wondering, why am I talking about the 26th? What does this have to do with anything? If you have the same energy towards free Gaza because you understand it’s a genocide, then you need to have the same passion towards the country that you’re living in or the one that you’re currently staying in.

This country is built off that as well. This 26 is not a good day and it shouldn’t be celebrated. And the people who do celebrate it, it’s kind of past the point of you not understanding. It’s all over social media. Everyone is aware that it is not a day to celebrate. So please respect the original owners of this land. And if you see that some of your friends are going or something like that, don’t join them. Educate them.

Rita Panahi:

There you go. Educate them, Colleen. That’s the catch cry. Apparently, if you’re educated, then you hate yourself, you hate your country and you hate Australia Day.

Colleen Harkin:

And I wonder whether that would constitute hate speech under these new laws.

Rita Panahi:

Probably not.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Well, this is just another example of the negativity that people are completely sick of. We were, and we still are the lucky country. Part of that has come from having a positive and optimistic psyche, and that’s what we want to celebrate. We have every reason to be proud of who we are and every reason to celebrate it. And I think the average Australian is not listening to that stuff anymore, quite frankly.

Rita Panahi:

Now, an internal document that the West Australian Labour government tried to keep secret has revealed a startling revelation about the gender clinic at the Perth Children’s Hospital. The document reveals that the gender clinic will connect interested under 18 patients with private surgeons for a mastectomy, double mastectomy, while stressing the personal responsibility of the girl and her family for that choice. That was a report from the Australian, Stephanie. That is disturbing to read. Do we know at what age young confused girls in this country are having their healthy breasts removed?

Stephanie Bastiaan:

Yeah, it’s a very disturbing story indeed. We don’t have clear data on this because the government doesn’t keep the records for the reason I imagine that the public would be outraged. We know that girls as young as 15 have spoken about in Australia having a double mastectomy, and we also know the Daily Mail reported in 2023 that there was a clinic in Queensland willing to perform it on girls as young as 13 with a referral. So this is definitely a thing, but I mean, this is why we need a national inquiry in conjunction with the states because the states are doing different things. They’ve got their own guidelines that are informed by the Australian standards of care and it’s all very hush-hush. There’s no mandatory reporting. There’s no mandatory follow-up and it’s really dark.

I saw something very recently where a mother who was a new mother, thankfully she had been able to conceive a child after going down the path of transitioning and coming back and she was sharing her experience of her milk coming in, having had a double mastectomy and not being able to feed her baby. I mean, these are the real devastating consequences of these treatments, even if it’s an adult, a young person. The question is whether they’re able to actually consent to these treatments like Mel Jeffrey, who is also suing the clinicians and the Monash clinic that performed a double mastectomy on her. You’re dealing with vulnerable people that often have other struggles with mental health. So I don’t think Albo is taking it seriously enough. I don’t think his inquiry is going to look at any of these things, but hopefully with more pressure in 2026, we can see some change.

Rita Panahi:

We need a national inquiry. We need transparency. That’s what we don’t have in this country. We need some transparency in how many of these surgeries are being performed at what ages. These are irreversible surgeries. Some of these girls are left infertile after this, and they’re making that decision as confused teenagers. It is just an appalling state of affairs. Colleen Harkin and Stephanie Bastiaan, thank you so much for your time tonight.

This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on The Rita Panahi Show – Sky News Australia from 19 January 2025 has been edited for clarity.