Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 26 May 2026

Rita Panahi:

Joining me now for more on this is News Corp senior writer, Patrick Carlyon and Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Colleen Harkin. Colleen, Andrew Charlton is a rarity in Labour. This is a man with private sector experience. He’s impressive, he’s built wealth and he’s got charisma. Should Jim Chalmers be worried?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, Jim Chalmers should be worried about everything that he’s done in the last few weeks. You know that everything’s wrong when you’re being hidden from your own party. They’ve lost control of the narrative here and that’s dangerous for any political party to be in. That budget has not been well received by anybody and the fact that two weeks later it’s still high profile in the media and conversation tells you everything that you need to know about it. And they’ve obviously not spoken to industry because now they’re only talking about maybe carve outs, which is what they should have considered … Whether you agree or disagree with the big principles within it, they obviously didn’t speak to anybody. It was an ideological grab that they’re now trying to work out how to handle and they’re bringing in other people to try and sort out the mess.

Rita Panahi:

Well, Patrick, the treasurer has really struggled to sell the budget. He’s been embarrassed in some interviews by his inability to just understand the basic concepts of economics. He says one thing, but then his policies are the polar opposite of what he’s saying he’s trying to achieve and even not really having a grasp of the data, the statistics that underpin some of these decisions.

Patrick Carlyon:

Look, I think he was arrogant and lazy when it comes to it. He thought this would be well received. I think both Mr. Albanese and Mr. Chalmers got the shock of their lives when it was received the way that it was. They’ve spent the last two weeks trying to explain it. And if you’re explaining it in politics, then you’re losing the argument. Jim Chalmers has not performed well. He hasn’t seemed comfortable. And now he’s on the naughty mat to be replaced by Andrew Charlton.

Rita Panahi:

Charlton, yeah. A man who built a business, sold it at considerable profit and really that makes him a standout in Labour because there you have … Is there anyone in cabinet, Colleen, who’s got industry experience, who’s got private sector experience, small business experience?

Colleen Harkin:

No, there’s a high proportion of ex staff as in union people, who-

Rita Panahi:

Oh, fantastic. It’s great for the country.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, correct. And this fellow would have some kind of understanding of what it takes to make a business. And this is where they’re losing it.

Rita Panahi:

Let’s not praise him too much because he was Kevin Rudd’s economic advisor.

Colleen Harkin:

True.

Rita Panahi:

And we remember some genius decisions there, but then it’s very hard to tell Kevin Rudd no, I would imagine. So if he comes up with some brilliant idea, you kind of have to execute it. I’ve been surprised, Patrick, by how little Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has been scrutinised throughout this last couple of weeks. These changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax, they’re all supposed to be around her policy area to make housing more affordable, solve the housing crisis. And she seems to escape scrutiny largely.

Patrick Carlyon:

Look, they seem to be hiding her as well. And I mean, I think the truth of it is, and people work this out very quickly, this is not going to increase the supply of housing. And that’s what is costing young people from being getting into the market in the first place, there’s not enough houses. We’ve got high immigration. There’s nothing that in the budget that alleviates that. They pushed this intergenerational equity line, which is ideology. It’s not based in reality.

Rita Panahi:

No. And that was, I think, their great hope, Colleen, that they were going to have this ideological win because as we know, the bulk of the media leans left. It’s a message that they would like to sell. And they thought particularly young Australians would swallow this up, but so many young Australians are ambitious. They’ve got their own businesses, they’ve got share portfolios and they know this is going to hurt them.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, correct. And they sort of used language that sounds appealing, but the policy does the exact opposite of what they’ve said it would do. And the relationship between CGT and housing ownership doesn’t exist. If you look at New Zealand, they have about 60% homeownership, so do we and they don’t have any CGT taxes. So it doesn’t take very long for people to scratch the surface and go, “Hang on, what are you talking about here? It’s all a nonsense.” And this is election changing material. If there was an election now, I think they’d be thrown out.

Rita Panahi:

Now, I’m going to stick with former prime ministers. Julia Gillard has [inaudible 00:04:39] a question about the law she introduced in 2013, which has led to an assault against women’s gender-based rights. A number of pro women campaigners attended the Hay on WYE Literary Festival where Gillard was a panel member and introduced as a, and I quote, “Kick ass woman,” but the campaigners erected a large banner which read, “Julia Gillard, destroyer of women’s rights.” Colleen, one woman attempted to ask Julie Gillard about Sall Grover and her case before she was interrupted by the moderator, Ms. Adler, and the panel discussion abruptly ended there.

Colleen Harkin:

I don’t know how you can be called a kick ass woman because it’s difficult to understand what a woman is anymore in the legislation.

Rita Panahi:

She can’t define one.

Colleen Harkin:

Correct, right? The real question here is the legislation doing as it was intended? It’s a simple yes or no. If the answer is yes, then we know what we’re fighting against. That’s a really big problem if the answer there is yes. But to the question, is it doing as it was intended? And the answer should be no, then it needs to be changed immediately. Sal Grover should not be dragged through the courts for years on end. All these other women who are in court defending simple sentences about the status of women, women have effectively been disengaged from the law.

Rita Panahi:

We are going to look back at this period and again, wonder about the mass lunacy. The fact that you could have a woman like Jasmine Sussex drag through tribunals and courts for saying that men can’t breastfeed. This is a breastfeeding expert who helped probably hundreds of women in her career to breastfeed their children. That a simple statement of fact can get you into that sort of strife, just tells you there’s something terribly wrong in this country. And Patrick, the irony is rich here. This is Australia’s first female PM whose key moment in her prime ministership was that misogyny speech written by a man who brought in a law that has really set back women’s rights.

Patrick Carlyon:

Yeah. Look, I think Colleen’s probably onto something. This is back in 2013, the world was different. This was intended to sort of give transgender rights, but what it has proven to do is put the rights of biological men who identify as female ahead of women. And that’s wrong. I mean, we’ve seen this court case playing out over four years. Sall Grover is still looking to appeal it again. And it’s because a man, a biological man wants to be part of a women’s group. And we’ve seen, whether it’s in sport or in prisons. We’ve had some terrible things happen in prisons because biological men have been put in female prisons.

Rita Panahi:

Again, putting male sexual predators with working male body parts, these aren’t postoperative men, in a female prison full of vulnerable women, many of them with histories of suffering sexual abuse, and it’s almost sadistic. I cannot believe we’ve allowed this to happen in this country.

Now to Victoria and where there were chaotic scenes at Melbourne’s county court yesterday as two arsonists received jail terms. If you ask me, manifestly inadequate jail terms, Phoenix Tims and Atem Akoi Thon pled guilty to two counts of arson causing death, car theft and arson of a car. They were jailed for seven years and six months with non-parole periods of four years. The pair were offered $4,000 to set fire to a Sunshine North factory in February 2024. The fire spread to a neighbouring property killing two innocent men who were sleeping inside. Chaos reportedly broke out at the court after the family of one of the arsoners lashed out violently plunging the court into a lockdown. Patrick, it seems like life is pretty cheap in this state. Two innocent men died and we’ve got jail terms here of minimums of four years.

Patrick Carlyon:

Yes, I think that they can seek parole in 2030.

Rita Panahi:

Oh, great.

Patrick Carlyon:

And they took $4,000 apparently to set fire to something and kill two innocent people. I mean, that’s outrageous, isn’t it? And it just goes to the lawlessness that this state sort of feels like it’s under at the moment. We’re hearing horrible stories almost every day, whether it’s firebombings or kids in bedrooms with machetes or [inaudible 00:09:07] or whatever. I mean, it really doesn’t feel very safe.

Rita Panahi:

It doesn’t. And we were promised the toughest bail laws, Colleen, in the country. We were told that kids would serve adult time for adult crimes. And yet this week we had teenagers released, no punishment. One of them, I think, got a community order, one of them to even have a conviction recorded. Again, for arson offences that caused millions in damage have left people without jobs, people have lost their livelihoods, terrorised workers, and yet they get a slap on the wrist, barely even a slap.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, and the message that that sends to other would-be criminals is astounding because if you’re a young 14 or 15 year old who is vulnerable to take $4,000 to set somewhere on fire and the consequence of that is very limited, there is no message to them to don’t get involved with this stuff. It’s an easy path out for them and it’s exactly the wrong message that we should be sending to these youth who are vulnerable. So when people talk about protecting youth, that is not the way to protect them. The way to protect them is to get them away from all of this stuff and to send a very strong message that if you get involved in this, you will do adult time, but that’s not what’s happening.

Rita Panahi:

And we’ve seen Queensland implement these laws just in the last 12 months with some fairly dramatic results and yet we’ve got some watered down version that’s not even being implemented, Patrick. We’ve got a whole bunch of judges who’ve been appointed by Labour governments over the last 20 odd years who are soft on crime. They’re activists, left-leaning judges with a certain ideology. And this is the results folks.

Now let’s talk about some tragic news yesterday of AFL great Neale Daniher passing away. He was age 65. He had a long battle with motor neuron disease. He was awarded Australian of the year in 2025, Patrick, he will be honoured with a state funeral. And what he has done for M&D awareness, research, the amount of money he raised and the fight he fought. I mean, he’s an inspiration and enduring inspiration.

Patrick Carlyon:

Look, he’s the most inspiring Australian of the year I can remember. I saw him back in October. His body was ravaged by the disease, but his restless mind, as he called it, was full of life. And after spending a couple of hours with him, just talking with him and he had to use his eyeballs to communicate through a computer, you felt uplifted, even though this poor man was sort of dying in front of your eyes, you actually felt his joy and his gratitude in a way that is very, very rare.

Rita Panahi:

Colleen, I guess the message he conveyed is you can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you react and he reacted with an almighty fight. And the money he’s raised and the awareness he’s raised will down the track save lives.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, and I think he said something like, after he got past asking why me, it was the what now. And he put every ounce of energy that he had into the what now. And I think he’s raised something like $130 million or something towards research. So a lot of people will benefit from everything that he’s done the last couple of years. An amazing man.

Rita Panahi:

Now we showed you last night footage of Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan going door to door in her electorate in Bendigo with reports she’s in danger of losing her seat, well the comics are already having fun with the footage. Here is Jon-Bernard Kairouz.

Paul Dowsley:

It looks like a door to door saleswoman, it’s in fact the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan trying to secure votes.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz:

Listen, get the (beep) off my property before I call the police. And why don’t you go instal another machete bin somewhere?

Paul Dowsley:

Internal polling reportedly shows she risks losing her seat at the election.

Rita Panahi:

Oh, Colleen, the skits write themselves. It’s just too easy, isn’t it?

Colleen Harkin:

I want to be that man.

Rita Panahi:

I’ve got to say it takes a brave premiere to go door to door, particularly knowing the ill feeling in regional Victoria, in Bendigo. Is she going to hold onto her seat, Patrick?

Patrick Carlyon:

It’s a good question. Look, the feeling is visceral. It has been, it was for Dan Andrews before her. I think it has deepened. You’ve got the whole sort of one nation push now. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen, but she could lose her seat.

Rita Panahi:

Extraordinary.

Patrick Carlyon:

Easily.

Rita Panahi:

Patrick Carlyon, Colleen Harkin, thank you so much for your time.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin talking on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia from 26 May 2026 has been edited for clarity.