Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 30 June 2026

James Morrow:

Well, absolutely right. Joining me now to discuss, this is News Corp senior journalist, senior writer Patrick Carlyon, and Institute of Public Affairs Research fellow, Colleen Harkin. Patrick, let’s start with you on this one here. This seems like such an unbelievable conflict of interest given the way the business that he works for is in the business of dealing with climate credits and renewable projects. And this whole deal that he’s got with the government is to be all about Australia’s climate change policy.

Patrick Carlyon:

Well, he can’t do both. I mean, Dan Tehan is right. I mean, the renewable sector has always seemed very cosy at times, and you’ve got people wearing more than one hat. And when you’re working for a private company that stands to either win or lose according to public policy over which you are overseeing at the same time, there are massive conflicts throughout this. And this should have been addressed well before now. We’ve got this trip overseas which has brought it to a head, but you can’t be doing both, can he?

James Morrow:

Well, no. And I mean, Colleen, this really does get to the heart of, I think, what a lot of people are concerned about what looks like very cosy arrangements between environmental regulators and people who have the ability to profit from them. Now, no one’s suggesting here that Matt Kean has done anything underhanded here, but this does get to the heart of a question that a lot of people have about who benefits and whose pockets are lined by the push for net-aero.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, and that’s right. I mean, the issue here is that it’s not entirely clear who is the beneficiary of the use of taxpayer funds. And that goes to the core of the issue. It just shouldn’t need to be a question. We shouldn’t be having to ask that question at all.

The other issue here is that for a part-time role, statutory position, sure, it’s part-time. So he’s entitled to do other work, not in conflict with the work that he’s paid to do as a taxpayer, but $70,000 in travel seems like a lot. And I’m sure that the average Joe out there has not spent $70,000 in travel, nor have they admitted the amount of carbon emissions that these people have done in their recent travel. I don’t understand why these all about climate continue to do all this travel. Why can’t they use Zoom like the rest of us?

James Morrow:

Well, yeah, I mean, look, that’s what I’ve always wondered. We all learned to use Zoom and stuff during the pandemic, and if climate change is such an emergency, why do they have to go to Rio to talk about it? I don’t know, maybe they just wanted to go to Rio. But hey, let’s come back closer to home here where labour is now trying to blame the low auction clearance rates that have been seen on Saturday after Saturday across the country on interest rates, although that seems to be a little bit their fault too, rather than their own so – called tax reforms. Have a listen here though to Labour MP Matt Thistlethwaite trying to deflect the blame for this reverse housing crunch.

Matt Thistlethwaite:

We saw that property investors were getting an advantage over people trying to buy a home. We’ve now levelled the playing field and I think that that will take some time to wash through the system, but you’re seeing now that first home buyers and people looking to buy a home are the ones that are turning up to auctions and buying existing properties. And that’s exactly what we wanted to assure.

James Morrow:

Patrick, if there were so many first home buyers on the sidelines jumping in now that value is being wiped off the face of people’s properties, why aren’t auction clearance rates higher?

Patrick Carlyon:

Well, that’s a very good question, James. I mean, look, the official rate was the same from November ’23 to December ’24. I think the clearance rate then was about 62, 63%. Now it’s 49%. And the fact is who wants to buy a property at the moment where experts are saying it’s going to be worth 10% less in a year’s time? And who wants to sell when I know that there are a few people buying? This is all about the budget and all about the unintended consequences of this really dreadful budget.

James Morrow:

Well, Colleen, I want to just talk about the economics of this too, because this budget, this dog of a budget that we’re still talking about months later, and I think the effects are going to be felt for years, what they’ve done here, tell me if I’ve got this wrong, they’ve taken a lot of value away from housing. They’ve basically frozen up the liquidity in that market, but then because they also took away those capital gains tax long-term exemptions for other businesses, there’s no place else for money to go and there’s no productivity improvements being made in the economy. So it feels like this is just making us poorer, not about what they claim, which is redirecting investor dollars into more productive enterprises.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Look, I think that’s exactly right. It is a redistribution of wealth and it is sort of slowing down the idea of building your own wealth and being an independent, financially aspirational person. Something that Patrick just said, I agree with everything that he just said, but the scenario of the young, the reason this was allegedly done was for first home buyers and they’re not entering into the market at all. They’re terrified. They’re frozen on the sidelines watching the idea that something that they might buy now, they’ll be in negative equity very soon.

So it is this sort of ill-considered scenario. I’m sure that they didn’t really plan this out properly. Proof is in the pudding that, as you say, four or five weeks later, we’re still talking about it and they’ve still been tweaking at the edges about how are they going to fix this problem. I’m not sure that they’ve really considered that this would be the result if they did. It’s a planned redistribution of wealth. If they didn’t, it’s incompetence and everybody is suffering as a result of it.

James Morrow:

Well, Patrick, let me flick this question over to you here because I’ve always been taught, and it’s what they teach you in journalism. If it’s between a conspiracy and a cock-up, you go with the cock-up. But to me, this feels like this is really a government that is very much against the idea of individual wealth, individual aspiration, and they would much rather people be dependent on the government and the government clips the ticket and distributes the proceeds of whatever’s left of the private economy. What do you think, conspiracy or cock-up?

Patrick Carlyon:

Look, I think mostly cock-up probably to be fair, James. Look, we had all that rhetoric beforehand talking about intergenerational equity or equality. There is a sense of redistribution here. There is a sense of moving the goalpost in a way, but I don’t think they actually fully appreciated how far they were moving them and the consequences of it. We’re seeing it straight immediately. We’re seeing what’s happening now. We don’t know where it’s going to be in two, three years time, do we?

James Morrow:

Yeah. Well, and that’s right. And one of you mentioned a moment ago, forgive me, I’ve just forgotten, but one of you mentioned the whole question of young people who bought with the 5% deposits, which the government guaranteed being in negative equity. Well, this was very interesting because Housing Minister Clare O’Neil, she has been out there talking about, “Oh, Angus Taylor avoids questions. He’s avoiding questions when it comes to the whole multiculturalism question. Have a look at this.

Journalist:

Do you believe Australia should be a monoculture?

Angus Taylor:

You explain to me what you mean by that. See, there’s all these vague words running around. I think I’ve been very clear about what we all need to share in this country. It’s about a shared set of values that we all sign up to. People coming to this country must adhere to these values.

James Morrow:

Yeah, that’s pretty funny though, but in parliament on Monday, Clare O’Neil herself, she demonstrated that she knows a thing or two about ducking questions. And here she was when she was being asked about this very issue of young homeowners going into negative equity. Have a look at this.

Dan Tehan:

Does the minister know how many first home buyers now owe more money than their home is worth?

Clare O’Neil:

Over time, house prices in Australia will continue to increase just a little bit more slowly than they otherwise would have, speaker.

Zoe McKenzie:

How many first home buyers now owe more money than their home is actually worth?

Clare O’Neil:

Speaker, the premise of the question is factually and utterly incorrect.

Anne Webster:

Does the minister know how many first home buyers now owe more money than their home is worth?

Clare O’Neil:

This is a variation on a question that I’ve now been asked multiple times and I’m not changing my answer.

James Morrow:

Colleen, what is going on here? I mean, seriously, this is the worst ducking of, I think, a very legitimate question.

Colleen Harkin:

It’s definitely a legitimate question and it needs to be understood. There would be nothing worse than putting your heart and soul into scraping together a little deposit to get into the market and then find out that you owe more than it’s worth. But the expertise on politicians and particularly that one from Claire O’Neill of not answering the question is Academy Award worthy. And I think that’s part of the reason why people are really tired of politicians. We just want a straight answer. It’s a simple question. We just want a straight answer.

James Morrow:

Yeah. And that high dodging outrage, Patrick, from the minister there, it’s the opposite’s fault for asking the question.

Patrick Carlyon:

Look, I think this all serves… It goes into one nation’s favour, doesn’t it? I mean, the electorate doesn’t like politicians. We think they lie, we think they deceive and seeing stuff like that really does galvanise that point, that they’re not actually on our side. They’re not trying to help. They’re not trying to be transparent. And we just see more and more examples like that all the time.

James Morrow:

Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, talking about people not liking politicians, Patrick, I just want to ask you about this idea too. The liberals are in a bit of strife in the polls. I don’t think that’s any secret. Liberal front venture, Melissa McIntosh, she represents the seat of Lindsay out around Penrith in Western New South Wales. She’s had this idea that maybe the party needs to rebrand itself. Now the idea has been pretty much poo-pooed by Tony Abbott and others saying it’s a bit of a brain fart. But Patrick, what do you think about this is just simply putting a new label on an old tin going to do it for the liberals?

Patrick Carlyon:

Oh, look, Tony Abbott said it straight out. If you’re not the liberals, then you’re not the liberals. You can’t put a new name on it. The one point that Macintosh did make that perhaps has some currencies, the fact that the liberals policies, the coalition’s policies aren’t cutting through at all. They’ve actually, they’ve abandoned net-zero. They’re talking about tax indexation. The electorate A, has barely heard of Angus Taylor and is B, totally unaware of these policies that may actually work if they were being sold properly.

James Morrow:

Yeah, indeed. I mean, there are some good policies they have there and they’ve landed well, but as you say, they just haven’t cut through. Hey, before I let you guys go, really fascinating story here. Employers have told a Senate inquiry that university graduates are relying too much on AI and they need more practical workplace skills. Colleen, I’d love to ask you what you’re thinking about this, what you see out there in the marketplace here. I feel like this is giving a bit of an up to the idea that actually people, humans will always have it over AI no matter how many clever things AI seems to be able to do.

Colleen Harkin:

I think that’s right. I mean, AI can write a university paper for you quite simply. And obviously the test is whether you know your stuff when you get out into the workforce. But what’s interesting about this is the propensity to not consider as a student the personality skills, the planning skills, the interrelationship skills, the confidence to present your ideas and all of those human characteristics that are so required in workplaces and actually more so in some cases than the actual specific and minuscule knowledge, because you can learn that as you go or you can look it up. It’s the human component that is often your employability, whether you’re reliable, whether you turn up on time, all of those things and AI can do certain part elements of a job and the cat’s out of the bag. It’s not going to be put away anytime soon.

So it’s not that it should never be used, as far as I’m concerned, but it is a warning shot to particularly university students about the skills that they’re currently not developing, and particularly those universities where they do a lot and way too much online and not enough practical components within their course so that the students come out at the other end having had industry experience. That’s really missing in a lot of courses and I think employers are absolutely desperate for that component to come back.

James Morrow:

And Patrick, just very quickly, I mean, you and I both work in an industry where there’s a lot of talk about AI and what it means for us, but is there a danger here that AI actually winds up making people stupider rather than smarter?

Patrick Carlyon:

Absolutely. Look, these uni students have been taught not to think properly. As Colleen said, they’re not being taught how to deal with a bad boss or to get on at work or to deal with a colleague who’s got BO. All those things are very human, but these are all critical aspects to going to work, aren’t they?

James Morrow:

Well, yeah, boy, colleague with BO, that’s the worst, but thank God I’ve got a really good boss. Patrick and Colleen, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin speaking on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia from 30 June 2026 has been edited for clarity.