Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 7 April 2026

Rita Panahi:

Joining me now to discuss this further is Institute of Public Affairs Research fellow Colleen Harkin and Sky News contributor Prue MacSween. Colleen, I’ll start with you. I’ve written about this issue in the Herald Sun today. We have been failed by successive governments, both at state and federal level. They’ve allowed green hysteria to trump logic and sound economic policies.

Colleen Harkin:

It’s a disgrace really. This ideological pursuit that has led to a scenario where people literally can’t put food on the table in a country that is energy rich as we are is an absolute disgrace. Ordinary Australians are literally hurting over this and it’s not going to change anytime soon because it’s based on our energy policy, which is all ideologically driven. IPA research will show you that four out of every five Australians just want affordable and reliable energy. They’re not asking for very much and we ought to be able to provide it. But our government is living in utopian La La land, they just don’t seem to be able to connect the dots with this and the consequences of these energy policies.

Rita Panahi:

Prue, I seem to recall the climate change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, promising us, just I think it was last month, that households could see savings of up to 10%. When are those savings coming?

Prue MacSween:

Well, in his dreams, I think, Rita. The bloke is a scam artist. And sadly, fossil fuel has been demonised so much but these demons are being exorcised now as reality is hit. Well-meaning Australians who thought that they were doing the right thing by the environment have suddenly realised that not being able to heat their food or their homes, the impact that we’re finding with these rising energy costs that are impacting on all across the cost of living. And we’ve been sold a pup, this is a scam by Bowen, a scam by this government. And we’ve had to learn a hard lesson and probably we all had to go through this hard lesson for people to understand that fossil fuel is not an enemy. And unfortunately, that’s what we’ve been told.

Rita Panahi:

Now, US President Donald Trump has taken another shot at Australia for the lack of help amidst the ongoing conflict with Iran. Have a listen to what he said.

Donald Trump:

And it’s not just NATO. You know who else didn’t help us? South Korea didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Australia didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Japan.

Rita Panahi:

Prue, given our meagre defences in this country, aren’t we reliant on the US? Isn’t it a good idea to not antagonise our biggest and most powerful ally who we are going to have to call on if, for example, China, if it becomes a little bit too aggressive?

Prue MacSween:

Well, we’re sitting ducks, Rita. And that’s the thing that people who have very short memories don’t realise how America saved us in the last war. And we’ve got Albanese who didn’t have a very great history with Trump or America. Then of course, we saw what happened when he became prime minister and it was very shaky grounds. And we all know that we are in trouble here, that consecutive governments, and I don’t just blame this one, have been really bad when it comes to allocating any defence budget. It’s indefensible now that we need it for our national security. But we’ve failed Trump in so many ways and so I don’t blame him for being put out. But of course, he didn’t really also consult his allies when he started all of this so I can understand why people are fearful, and particularly as he’s becoming a little bit more erratic in his policymaking when it comes to Iran.

Rita Panahi:

Well, I’m not surprised that he didn’t consult with us. He wanted the element of surprise. I think the last thing he would want would be someone within the Australian government leaking what was being planned. And if the, yeah, and if the UK isn’t going to be consulted, Australia certainly isn’t going to be. Isn’t this just a matter of self-interest here, Colleen? We need the US far more than they’ll ever need us and it is in our national interest to not antagonise the leader of the free world.

Colleen Harkin:

Look, our defence budget is 2% of GDP.

Rita Panahi:

It’s a joke.

Colleen Harkin:

Seriously, if we were under any threat, what could we do? It would be ridiculous.

Rita Panahi:

You know what we’d be doing? We’d be going to the biggest weapon we have, which is the telephone before the White House. That’s going to be the most powerful thing we’ll be able to do at a time of crisis.

Colleen Harkin:

And we’re in this crazy situation where at our best we are giving mixed messages. Is that how you treat an ally who we are going… We’ve been told on the one hand that we live in uncertain and dangerous times. And on the other hand, we’re dissing our allies and we’re not doing anything about our defence budget. Again, we’re living in this crazy situation where we think no harm will ever come to us. And it’s just naive.

Rita Panahi:

And it seems like the Australian government is making its decisions based on the hysterical media reporting about this conflict. Because I remember just a few weeks ago, Anthony Albanese talking about the evils of the Iranian regime, how necessary this action was, how Iran could never have nuclear weapons, how the people deserve to be free. And yet, just a few weeks later, that seems to all be forgotten. And we’re having large segments of the media accepting propaganda from the Iranian regime about how this war is going and reporting it sometimes uncritically, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

Correct. And even the general population, I think, has lost focus about what this is all about. There’s not that strategic understanding about why these things happen and it becomes this populous TikTok kind of movement without actually understanding what the global relationships mean.

Rita Panahi:

Now, One Nation MP, Barnaby Joyce, has said that Australia should be wary of continuing its criticism of the US president during this conflict. Let’s have a listen to what Barnaby Joyce said to Channel 7 earlier.

Barnaby Joyce:

One thing I do know is it can only make things worse for Australians if we participate in a character reference of the president. We are going to rely on the United States incredibly if things get worse and it sounds like they’re not getting better.

Rita Panahi:

Prue, the former Deputy PM, they’re stating the bleeding obvious but it seems to be lost on members of the Albanese government, including the Prime Minister.

Prue MacSween:

Well, sadly, Rita, most things seem to be lost when it comes to common sense on this government and Albanese. As you said, the first defence mechanism will be the phone to pick them up and say, “Please help.” But why we would be criticising the US regime and Trump himself is ridiculous. And also the world is watching. China, Russia, they’re all watching how everyone is dealing with this crisis. And we are just a fair weather friend, or you couldn’t even say we’re a friend at the moment. We’re not displaying any support. And it’s only people who have lived through this before in these really dangerous times who understand that you really need every friend you’ve got when you’re sitting at the bottom of the globe and you have no defences at all. You are, as I said before, a sitting duck.

Rita Panahi:

Experts have warned that Australia faces unavoidable fuel rationing if the war in Iran stretches beyond this week. It follows a rise in global oil prices as US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz approaches. Prue, we had reports yesterday suggesting that Iran was desperate to strike a 45-day ceasefire deal. Can you see rationing happening in this country? It seems unbelievable but we’ve already got an increasing number of petrol stations that are running out of fuel.

Prue MacSween:

Well, I can see it, Rita. And the sad thing is that we can’t trust this government. We’re getting mixed messages all the time, “Don’t panic. Go on holiday. Oh, but don’t drive your car, try and stay home and work.” Who knows what’s going on really? And you couldn’t trust a word that came out of Bowen’s mouth. They couldn’t organise, well, anything basically that I can see. They have such a poor history. And when they say that we will have fuels on the way, we’ve got it till May. Well, May is just around the corner. I cannot see any effort on their part that is going to make reality hit that we really have got a crisis here. They just seem to be floating lies and living in La La Land, pretending it’s all going to go away. Well, it ain’t.

Rita Panahi:

Well, it’s not just the half-truths, the wishful thinking, Colleen. It’s the contradictory messages we’re getting from this government. It doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence that they know what they’re doing and they have a firm plan in place to deal with whatever comes.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Well, that’s right. They were very slow to convene a national cabinet to talk about the issue. They’re very slow to do that. And then we had the national address, which was the fourth in over 20 years. And that was to tell us to not take too much fuel and to take the train if we could.

Rita Panahi:

Fantastic. Fantastic use of a national address. Yes.

Colleen Harkin:

Correct, right? They didn’t seem to be taking it seriously. And now we’re being towards this emergency conversation but no one is hearing a plan. And the real issue is that I might be able to take the train or somebody else might be able to stay at home for a day or two, but the farmers are not getting their diesel and they’re not getting their fertiliser. And that has a long tail to it in terms of what we will receive in X amount of months when the crops can’t be cut and all of that kind of stuff. But there doesn’t seem to be a plan in place. If we’re going to have rationing, be honest with us, get it moving and just be transparent with the Australian people because that’s what we expect is leadership and honesty.

Rita Panahi:

Well, I’ll be speaking to Professor Ian Plimer shortly about this very issue and some of this contradictory messaging that’s coming out that is not helpful in any way. But let’s move on to the world of academia, your world, Colleen. Let’s go to controversial writer and Macquarie University Academic, Randa Abdel-Fattah. The Australian newspaper reports today on the taxpayer largess she has enjoyed, a children’s picture book and a young adult fiction novel was cited as research achievements in her successful grant application for nearly $900,000. We’re talking about taxpayer funding here. And public funds were also used to fly two American academics to Australia to attend a workshop about the 30-year-old play, The Politics of Belly Dancing at a cost of $6,100.

Prue, this sounds like important work. The Aus also reports taxpayers will billed $170 an hour to transcribe interviews with Islamic activists. Again, how do you justify that at a time where we have people tightening their belt, we’ve got real financial crisis, increasing debt, cost of living crisis, and we seem to have just this largess, this generosity for segments of academia?

Prue MacSween:

Well, I think it needs to be renamed to the Research Rot Council because when you’ve got people like this woman who describes herself as a social activist, why is the Australian public allowing this council that has a budget of $1 billion a year to support activism? And that’s what she’s openly doing and admitting and this is her quest in life. She must be thinking we are all fools, which we are if we continue this. Jason Clare is in charge of this as the education minister, he should stop it immediately. And when we know what’s coming for Australia, we are going to hit the biggest recession ever and things are going to get a lot worse than they are now. The last thing we need is for a billion of our dollars to be spent on these activists. We need to prioritise and this government needs to wake up to itself and start saving money and not promoting activism and supporting such rot.

Rita Panahi:

Well, I don’t think you could even blame this particular academic, Prue, Abdel-Fattah. She’s requesting these grants but she doesn’t approve them. The people who are approving them, who are signing off I think are the ones we need to be critiquing. But Colleen, this is your world, academia. You’re an expert in this area. Is this an isolated example of hard left ideology being funded by the taxpayer or is this pretty much the norm?

Colleen Harkin:

Unfortunately, it’s not isolated at all. Activism is in all of our institutions from childcare all the way through schools, universities. It’s a nonstop embedded scenario. When you listen to things like The Politics of Belly Dancing, it must make people’s blood boil who are trying to put food on the table. Your first story, when you see this contradiction in what’s happening in our society. But it is not isolated, children from kindergarten all the way through. Every day, all day, there’s this like a dripping tap about this activist agenda, whether it’s decolonizing the curriculum or whether it’s you’re a global citizen, not an Australian one. There’s about three climate anxiety. There’s about three touch points that are constant in the school day that parents would be shocked to find out actually. If they sat in a classroom for a week and saw what their children were being exposed to, they would be shocked.

Rita Panahi:

Absolutely. Colleen Harkin, Prue MacSween, thank you so much for your time tonight.

Prue MacSween:

Thanks.

Colleen Harkin:

Thank you.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia from 7 April 2026 has been edited for clarity.