Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 9 December 2025

In this interview, Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia contextualises and disseminates the findings of the IPA’s research into the Victorian treaty.

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:

But first, secret ministerial briefings have revealed indigenous Victorians will be able to seek supercharge reparations through the state-based treaty. The Jacinta Allan government fought to keep the briefings hidden until after the treaty legislation was passed through parliament. The briefing says, “It is intended that the treaty pathway will be incentivized as the preferred option for traditional owners seeking recognition and reparations.”

Liberal MP David Davis said the Allen government fought for months against the release of the ministerial briefings to him under the Freedom of Information Laws. He said Labour always intended reparations to be part of this treaty, they just lied about it until it was passed. Joining me now for more on this is News Corp senior writer, Patrick Carlyon, an Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Colleen Harkin. Colleen, the briefing also revealed two indigenous groups were recently awarded an estimated $100 million in settlement packages.

Colleen Harkin:

Look, part of this is the whole story about what Victorians have never been told. So there is a thing called the Traditional Owners Settlement Act, and there is thousands and thousands of acres and millions of dollars that has already been paid out in what is effectively reparations by stealth. This has been kept quiet from the public on the basis that people kind of think that the treaty is a bit of a feel good unifying moment, but actually what it is, is incredibly opaque and disingenuous about what’s actually going on. The Traditional Owners Settlement scenario has gone under the radar for I think about 15 years and most Victorians have no clue about what’s been going on. So the idea that the treaty is just sort of a symbol of unity is actually the opposite of what’s going on.

Rita Panahi:

Anyone who’s bothered to actually look at the legislation, look at the documents that came before the legislation, it is very clear that this is a radical, radical body with a radical agenda. And Patrick, today, Premier Jacinta Allan delivered yet another apology to indigenous Victorians in the parliament.

Patrick Carlyon:

Yes, that’s right. I think Jeff Kennett first apologised back in 1997, so we could add up how many apologies there’s been. But this treaty process, I mean, it’s been by stealth the entire way. The Allen government’s tried to separate the notion of the symbolism from the reparations. And here we have a document that directly links them together. There is no mandate for this. There’s no mandate for reparations, especially after the voice referendum last year. I mean, this has all happened in secret. And Victoria can’t afford it. We can’t afford anything at the moment. No. We can’t afford hundreds of millions of dollars.

Rita Panahi:

We can’t. We’ve got a state riddled with potholes, biggest debt in the country, biggest debt of any state, land tax going through the roof, all sorts of property taxes and taxes on small businesses, medium-sized businesses. I mean, the place is in dire straits and we’re paying at $100 million in reparations kind of secretly. Incredible stuff. Now, let’s talk about Anika Wells. Sports minister has been found to have breached parliamentary rules after she failed to declare free tickets to multiple A list events. Of course she’s a communications minister as well.

Yesterday, Anika Wells Parliamentary Register of Members Interest was updated to include tickets for herself and her husband to go to the AFL, NRL, NRLW grand finals. She also added free tickets to Oasis, entry to the Logies. The list goes on. MPs are required to update the public register within 28 days of receiving gifts and hospitality, but it’s been over a month since the Oasis concerts all up there are nine declarations that should have been declared as far back as August. Colleen, the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday revealed that Anika Wells charged taxpayers almost a thousand dollars to have a government funded car wait seven hours for her while she watched the tennis, while she attended the Australian Open back in 2023. Just the level of arrogance and entitlement here is astonishing.

Colleen Harkin:

It shows complete contempt for constituents, really, for the Australian taxpayer. I look at Minister Wells and think that she’s entirely on top of the perks that go with her job, but not at all on top of her portfolio. Because it wasn’t very long ago with the Optus outage and she excused herself saying she’d only been in the position for six months.

And in that almost that same week, she was scouting off to New York for $100,000 trip to speak something that she hasn’t even done yet. So the social media ban starts tomorrow. Nobody still knows how it’s going to work. It’s been challenged. Whether it should happen at all, that conversation has never really been happened. And when Bronwyn Bishop did this for $5,000, remember that Chopper Gate helicopter, she resigned. I mean, Anika Wells, her lifestyle must be extraordinary on our dollar.

Rita Panahi:

Well, yeah, the kids are skiing in … Where did she go skiing? Perisher?

Patrick Carlyon:

Thredbo.

Rita Panahi:

Thredbo. On the taxpayer they’re attending Oasis concerts, they’re attending cricket games, tennis, football. I mean, it’s a fairly nice lifestyle. Over $90,000 for three airfares to New York that I can’t get over.

Patrick Carlyon:

Yes.

Rita Panahi:

Patrick, the prime minister also got a ticket to Oasis, but he declared it within the required time. Surely if he can manage it, Anika Wells could manage it.

Patrick Carlyon:

Well, she’s been to a lot of things to be fair. Be hard to keep up with the register.

Rita Panahi:

Friend’s birthdays, let’s forget that.

Patrick Carlyon:

And the friend’s birthday, other labour politicians didn’t claim expenses for that. And I mean, she’s obviously right across how to claim expenses, the problem is, if you look at Bronwyn Bishop, if you look at Tony Burke, you look at to see where those stories went. They ended up apologising. They ended up repaying it. Anika Wells could be repaying hundreds of thousands of dollars here.

Rita Panahi:

Excellent.

Patrick Carlyon:

And that might be the expectation. Is she going to repay it? And that’s where the story will move in the coming days.

Rita Panahi:

Well, she says it’s within the guidelines. The prime minister says it’s within the guidelines. That’s the defence here. But Bronwyn Bishop’s chopper ride was within the guidelines. It still cost her plenty, not just paying it back, but she had to step down. Now, it’s not just Anika Wells. Don Farrell has also been dragged into this saga after it was revealed he logged over 200 publicly funded family reunion flights, including trips to two AFL deciders, three Australian open matches, and also a sunset dinner at Uluru. Sounds delightful, Colleen, really. I mean, at this point, they’re just extracting the uron with these antics. It’s too much.

Colleen Harkin:

Great expression, by the way. Absolutely. Look, we elect public officials. We don’t elect the entire family. So I think any reasonable person would say, “Maybe there’s once a year or something if you’ve been on an extended scenario.” If you can’t do the job and be away from your family, then don’t do the job. Don’t take the job. So people are sort of excusing them, “Oh, they’re away from their family for a period of time.” Well, just don’t take the job. Let someone else who’s able to focus on it. The amount of money that is being spent on family and friends, essentially for these people to have amazing lifestyles, it does not pass the pub test.

Rita Panahi:

No. Shouldn’t be part of the deal? They are well paid. And it’s one thing to have perhaps during Christmas to have some sort of a family reunion flight covered, but to just constantly have companions at events and particularly when they’re Australian open events or Oasis tickets or sunset dinners in Uluru, it seems like you’re in the job for the wrong reasons.

Patrick Carlyon:

Well, if you’ve got a com car waiting for you for seven hours while you watch the tenants. I mean, I think 100% of Australians would say, “You’re taking the…” You really are. You cannot be serious. And I mean, look, what will happen here, we’ll see other politicians accused of spending this on this and having expenses there, it will just play out. And the electorate hates it. Absolutely hates it.

Rita Panahi:

Do you think Anika Wells can survive this? Let’s forget about Don Farrell for a second, but the number of incidents with Anika Wells, it just seems that it’s going to be something that the Prime Minister can’t ignore.

Patrick Carlyon:

You’d think so. I don’t think she can. She should survive, really. It is so off the charts compared to Bronwyn Bishop or Tony Burke who had one sort of instance where they overstepped. There are 20 and there might be more coming out.

Rita Panahi:

And also failing to declare them in any sort of timely manner, making multiple updates yesterday, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, and there’s also the $1,700 dinner in France where she said that she fell asleep and had a [inaudible 00:09:27]. Well, what was the $1,700 spent on?

Rita Panahi:

Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

I’m with you, Patrick. I don’t think she should survive it. It doesn’t pass any sort of reasonable test. And that word reasonable is in their chatter to follow. So whether you spend $100 on a bottle of wine, maybe you can shimmy that, but $1,700 on a dinner for a couple of people, that doesn’t pass anybody’s test.

Rita Panahi:

No. And just the allowance she had per day for Paris was completely out of the realms of normality, you would think. Now, let’s talk about OnlyFans model, Bonnie Blue. In fact, I don’t think she’s on OnlyFans anymore. I think she got kicked off that platform. But she’s facing up to 15 years in an Indonesian prison after her arrest in Bali, but it’s believed she may be deported instead. Police are yet to release additional information following the arrest last week of the woman known as Bonnie Blue and 17 male tourists on suspicion of breaching Indonesia’s anti-pornography laws.

If prosecuted and found guilty, she faces up to 15 years imprisonment and finds upwards of 500,000. Colleen Philo Dellano, a managing partner at a law firm in Jakarta says she’s likely to be helped by an “invisible hand,” that’s the expression, and will be deported instead. But I mean, I hope for her sake, that’s true. People seem to forget Bali is part of Indonesia. It is a Muslim country.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Look, there’s a couple of things to this. It is a Muslim country and it’s showing a complete disrespect for that country’s values. It also, to me, is a question of if a guy was doing this, if this was a male who was out courting and trying to get very young males, very young girls on board, there would be outrage. And for some reason, this sort of Me Too movement doesn’t apply to women. So she’s out there doing something that’s completely reprehensible in a country that finds it reprehensible and nobody seems to worry too much about that. And if it was a male who was doing it, people would not be happy with it either.

Rita Panahi:

Oh no, absolutely. And we’re not a Muslim country, but we find it reprehensible so much so that she’s banned. She wanted to pull these antics on the Gold Coast showing schoolies and film sex scenes with a bunch of barely legal young men and Australian authorities said, “No, thank you.” And she’s gone to Bali instead. Seems like a fairly poor decision.

Patrick Carlyon:

Well, I did some research on this earlier today.

Rita Panahi:

I bet you did.

Patrick Carlyon:

And there was a well-worn path of porn stars going to Bali because it’s forbidden to do those things in Bali. And so the publicity it generates is massive. It’s worldwide, obviously. So I think the publicity was a massive sort of draw card for doing this in the first place. She’ll probably get deported at some point. She’s languishing in jail for God knows how long.

Rita Panahi:

And it wouldn’t be pleasant to be-

Patrick Carlyon:

No.

Rita Panahi:

… in any sort of Bali prison. It’s not exactly like our system here. But just more broadly, Patrick, I’m sure you’re aware of this character. One of the most recognisable names in the world right now, it seems astonishing the fame she’s been able to achieve and the money she’s amassed from doing what she does. Most of what she does, I can’t even describe on a family friendly programme like this, but is that speak of a societal issue? Are we fairly sick as a society that a character like this?

Patrick Carlyon:

I think there’s always been a market for this kind of thing, hasn’t there? Since day one.

Rita Panahi:

But not in this manner. This is like-

Patrick Carlyon:

She’s weaponized it in a monetary way that is unprecedented, I’m sure.

Rita Panahi:

Yeah. It seems to be that sort of porn culture, Colleen, but on steroids.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, completely. And she knows exactly what she’s doing. She has monetized sexual activity. And I’m a bit of a libertarian. So on the one hand, it’s everybody’s business what they do, but that’s actually not what she’s… She’s not doing it privately. I think that’s part of this component is that she has commercialised it in a way and a very targeted audience that are barely old enough to know how she’s manipulating.

Rita Panahi:

And it’s normalising, I think, levels of depravity that perhaps shouldn’t be normalised. And it’s one thing to do things in private. But like you said, this isn’t private at all. Patrick Carlyon, Colleen Harkin, thank you so much for your time.

This transcript with Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia has been edited for clarity.