Colleen Harkin on The Weekly Wrap ABC Melbourne – 10 October 2025

In this interview, Colleen Harkin appeared on ABC Melbourne Mornings with Rafael Epstein to discuss the IPA’s research on divisiveness in Australian politics.

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.

Rafael Epstein:

Joining us this morning to talk about all the news of the week is Emma Dawson, Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre. Good morning, Emma.

Emma Dawson:

Good morning.

Rafael Epstein:

And Colleen Harkin is with us, as well, director of the school’s programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. Good morning, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

Good morning to you both.

Emma Dawson:

Hey.

Rafael Epstein:

Emma, is peace about to break out?

Emma Dawson:

Oh God, let’s hope so. No one’s going to count their chickens on this because there’s so much that could still go wrong and we’ve come this close a couple of times before and it’s fallen apart, but it is looking promising. But no, I wouldn’t be so bold as to say it’s a done deal by a long shot. I think there are players on both sides that actually don’t want peace. It would seem that Netanyahu is abiding by the terms of what’s been put to him by the Trump administration. If they can pull it off, let’s hope they can, but no, I’m not going to, I won’t be surprised if it falls apart.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen, do you want a crystal ball guess for us?

Colleen Harkin:

I’m slightly more optimistic. I think there’s obviously a few days before we even see where the phase one will come to pass. I’m fairly confident that at least phase one we will reach, which is-

Rafael Epstein:

So you mean Palestinian prisoners released, Israeli hostages released?

Colleen Harkin:

Israeli hostages released and that, in and of itself, is huge. It’s a huge step in the right direction. The cessation of fire.

Rafael Epstein:

Can I be negative? We had that in March, there was a ceasefire then, and there were prisoners exchanged and hostages exchanged.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, but look, I think the involvement of Trump has made a difference and I do think that the attack in Qatar was a turning point that has made a difference.

Rafael Epstein:

Do you think that gave Trump something to feed Israel about the head with, say, “No, you guys stop. Enough.”

Colleen Harkin:

Correct. Yeah, I remember that comment when he made, they’ve been fighting for so long that they don’t know the f what they’re doing. I think that did change things a little bit and there’s been a different tone and Trump getting involved has changed all the dynamics of all of it. So I think that’s been a really positive thing and I don’t know anyone else who actually could have done that. People go crazy about Trump and how he’s unpredictable.

Rafael Epstein:

But you’ve got to remove your view of him.

Colleen Harkin:

Correct.

Rafael Epstein:

He’s the American president.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah, that’s right.

Colleen Harkin:

Right.

Rafael Epstein:

If the American President’s applying pressure.

Emma Dawson:

At the office, yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

And he has, at least seem to be for the moment, been able to apply that pressure, the cessation of fighting, the release of hostages, humanitarian relief is they’re all fabulous things that we should all just hold our breath and hope that it continues. Yeah, so I’m a little bit, at least for phase one. Phase after what happens after that is much more complicated.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen Harkin, and it needs a new title. Colleen Harkin, Optimist and Director of the Schools Programme. 1300.222.774 optimism is a good thing. 1300.222.774. Tell us what you make of, so it’s a ceasefire. It’s not a peace deal. Let’s talk about here at home, we had graffiti on the same day that it was the anniversary of October 7, which was the kickoff to the latest round of a decades-long conflict. We did hurriedly organise to speak to the deputy prime minister in the wake of that graffiti. And it struck me what he said about the level of tension in society because of what’s gone on in Gaza and in Israel. Here’s what he said on Tuesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles:

I really think we have seen social cohesion put under, well as much pressure as I’ve seen in my lifetime over the course of the last couple of years. And it’s really, therefore, important that we are thinking about that in the context of our own nation and making sure that we are looking after each other as Australians.

Rafael Epstein:

As much pressure on our society as he has seen in his lifetime. Do you agree?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, unfortunately I do. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a situation where there’s been such vitriol, I guess is what I’ll call it on our streets, and expressed. I’ve said this before, we’re a pretty tolerant society and tolerant of people’s differences and I don’t think we are at the moment, and it’s not all of us, it’s extreme groups of extremists.

Rafael Epstein:

Can I? I’m not sure it’s about extremists because I had an interchange with a caller, Josh, earlier in the week and I said to him, “Look, for a lot of people who don’t consider themselves to be extreme, who is right and who is wrong is an incredibly central, incredibly important question and they wouldn’t consider themselves to be extreme. So if you’re supporting Israel, it’s about hostages and about Hamas did this terrible thing. If you’re supporting Palestine, the word must that we use should be genocide. So I don’t want to call them extremists, but how do we get away from who is right and who is wrong?

Colleen Harkin:

Because-

Rafael Epstein:

But they’re so important to so many people.

Colleen Harkin:

But it’s actually the point is that we’ve become so divisive and so black and white, it’s a really complicated situation where people have views on things that are either personal history or whatever, and so therefore, it’s, I’ll call it tribal, there’s a personal attachment to it or it’s a political view that has a bias within it. And I think that’s quite new territory for Australia. We’ve historically been pretty laissez-faire about, on our streets, been laissez-faire about what’s been happening internationally, but I don’t feel that anymore. The poster, the billboard of celebrating Hamas in Fitzroy, that really shocked me. I might not have been quite as surprised if I’d seen it in somewhere like Western’s suburbs of Sydney where there’s a population that might reflect that view. But I thought in Fitzroy it really surprised me because the city of Yarra’s got 10% of LGBT community, and Hamas is not a friend of the LGBT community. So I didn’t know whether that’s a warning to our local LGBT people or what. It just does really worry me about the underbelly of what’s going on.

Emma Dawson:

It is something we are not used to seeing in Australia. And I think one thing I want to say is we’re still relatively, compared to some of the conflict, the domestic tensions in Europe and the UK where I’ve been for the last couple of weeks, we’re relatively not as polarised as the others.

Rafael Epstein:

So we’re further down the line for us.

Emma Dawson:

Exactly. It’s unusual in Australia and I think that the point here, Raf, is where I agree with both of you, but where I agree with you particularly is there’s no meeting in the middle on this debate anymore. People have a very firm black and white view. You’re either on the side of Israel or you’re on the side of the Palestinians and you believe Israel is a genocidal, settler colonial state or you believe that Israel is defending itself against intractable terrorism. And this is, I don’t think it’s just emerged. This is the issue around which people have congregated both here and internationally, but this polarisation, the contempt with which people treat each other in these debates. The refusal to make room for nuance, the refusal to accept that we can have different positions on this issue, but we are all operating in good faith.

That has been really undermined over the last 5 to 10 years, I think, particularly by social media and by the fact that people are getting an international message on this. They’re building communities online with people they don’t necessarily know in real life and it has led to people being much more extremist, and that is not something that we have had to grapple with much in this country.

Rafael Epstein:

I want to get to, I won’t say solutions, but I want to get maybe to whether or not our politicians have been dealing with it well. Every week we talk about the news of the week. Emma Dawson’s with us from the Chifley Research Centre, Colleen Harkin’s with us from the Institute of Public Affairs, 1300.222.774 is the phone number. If you’ve got a view on how new this is, and also the question I’ll put to both of you. I’ll start with you Emma. There’s a part of me that goes, “You know what? It’s great. The Greens are talking to their supporters. They use the language of their supporters.” That’s great. And they’re representing a constituency. Same with the liberal party. They’re really representing a segment of the community who believe that, fundamentally, Israel is doing the right thing.

So maybe actually, I know it’s fraught, but maybe that’s really good because we’ve got a parliament. I know they get upset with each other. Part of me thinks it’s great, they’re actually doing really well. And then I totally changed my mind. Are our politicians handling it well or not?

Emma Dawson:

Those from the two parties you just mentioned. Obviously I’m going to, I’m a Labour voter and a Labour supporter and a member of the Labour Party and I run their think tank now, and they’re in government so they have to tread a much more careful path, not just domestically, but internationally, as well. I think you’re right, they’re speaking to their own constituents. There’s a party on the right that seems to represent the views of Jewish people in Australia and-

Rafael Epstein:

Some Jewish people.

Emma Dawson:

Some Jewish people in Australia, and be very pro-Israel and the Greens are on the other side. My concern about that, Raf, is that they are pandering to the worst instincts of some of those constituents, and they are encouraging the division and not seeking to find common ground. And there are many Jewish people I know that I-

Rafael Epstein:

They would both disagree with you. They would be disagree.

Emma Dawson:

Look, they would both disagree with that, but that’s what I see happening. And encouraging some of that language and that contempt for fellow Australians that if you support Israel in any way, if you say Israel has a right to exist now, which was of completely uncontroversial position in this country for decades, then you are somehow now a genocide supporter. Or if you have sympathy for the Palestinian people and admit and say that Israel should not be making illegal settlements in the West Bank and that, that behaviour for years has been inflammatory and bad, then you’re somehow anti-Semitic. These are not helpful positions for leaders to take because this is an incredibly complex situation. It’s been going on for decades, centuries, in some respects. And I don’t think that whether it’s this issue, or whether it’s on housing, or whether it’s on immigration, or whether it’s on anything, that pandering to people’s worst instincts and encouraging them to take extreme positions and to treat other Australians with contempt is not helpful.

And I think the way people voted at the last election was to say, actually, most of us don’t like that. We don’t want to see that kind of real conflict playing out in our parliament and in our streets.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, I totally agree, Em. I think it would be a rare case of, on any topic for people to say our politicians are doing a great job.

Rafael Epstein:

But here’s an input, I just want to make the case for the liberal party and the Greens. I’m not saying I agree with either position, but people vote for them. They’re very vocal about those things. The point of the Parliament, the point they are our representatives, they should speak and represent the views of the people who vote for them. Isn’t that their job?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, actually Parliament is for making legislation, and so the less we have of that, the better. And so it’s not really their job to be an activist. Do you know what I mean? There is a difference between being a political activist and being a legislator.

Rafael Epstein:

That’s a great answer.

Emma Dawson:

Right, I could not agree more. I’ve made that point so many times. If you want to be an activist, be an activist, there’s a role for you in society. It’s not in the Parliament.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. And so I’m very uncomfortable with the current conversation because I’m a traditionalist, I guess I’ll call myself, and I really do value the things that Australia has offered millions of people for a very long time, and that is the tolerance of each other and the democracy and the freedoms, and we are losing them because of this extreme activism.

Rafael Epstein:

If I can, I just want to bring someone else into the conversation, 1300.222.774 is the number that Diana has called from Burwood. What did you want to mention, Diana? I think you want to talk about the American President in some form. What do you want to say?

Diana:

Yes, I do. Look, I think Trump had plenty of time to try and negotiate a peace deal. He’s still been sending bombs and weapons over to bomb drop on Palestinians, and all of a sudden when the peace Prize is on the horizon, he suddenly negotiated a peace. My feeling is once he misses out, he’s going to take revenge and it’s going to break down.

Rafael Epstein:

Oh, wow. Okay. I should point out, by the way, the Nobel Peace Prize is going to be announced this evening. I can’t imagine he’s in the running for this one because it takes a few months, but who knows?

Colleen Harkin:

He hasn’t achieved peace, yet.

Emma Dawson:

But I was wondering about that, though, right?

Rafael Epstein:

No, Ibam got it, right?

Emma Dawson:

Is he going to spit the dummy and turn around and go home from Egypt if he doesn’t get the Nobel peace?

Rafael Epstein:

Hang on.

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, don’t.

Emma Dawson:

Can I?

Rafael Epstein:

Very briefly. I want to get some texts.

Emma Dawson:

The point I was making earlier, I am an absolute passionate believer in you need ideology in politics. You should represent the people that you’re there to represent, you should have ideological convictions and you should fight for them. That doesn’t mean you should fight with people on a personal level. And it’s the tone and the contempt and the contempt for the concept of social cohesion coming from both right and left. We should always be working towards negotiating, living together in our pluralistic society. I’d love to see them fight so ideologically over economic and social policy issues at home. That’d be nice.

Rafael Epstein:

The policy nerd coming out. Can I just read some texts? Sorry. There’s nothing complex about genocide. It’s not about politics, it’s about humanity. Just so you understand some of the feedback we’re getting. This is a ridiculous conversation and it’s a deflection. Is international law a belief? Someone else saying, “Let’s stop patting Trump on the back because he’s allowed Israel to destroy Gaza.” So that’s just some of the texts that have come through. I haven’t been able to, in the conversation, pluck out some of the ones on both sides of the conversation. I want to get to what our parliament can do, what our politicians can do to make sure that when you pick up the phone and dial 000, it works. We’ll get to that.

ABC Voiceover:

This is ABC Radio Melbourne with Raf Epstein.

Rafael Epstein:

Just keep this in mind, at the end of 2023, Optus had a software failure at a server in North America. It meant that its system went into automatic shutdown for safety, its own internal logic, safety reasons, thousands of people couldn’t make a call. We don’t think anybody died as a result of that. Telstra had a similar problem. Its software shut down in March of last year. So the triple zero operators, the national ones that would take your call, they couldn’t patch the calls through to a state like Victoria, there were hundreds of calls that didn’t go through. One person died in Fitzroy. It’s not clear if that was because the call didn’t go through.

The government were then told two simple things, get them to check it every six months, put someone in charge of triple zero, called the triple zero custodian. That hasn’t happened yet. Neither of those two things have happened yet. Last month, Optus had another software problem, a series of them. Actually, thousands of people couldn’t ring triple zero. People did die this time because of that problem. So there’s a lot of heat on the minister that runs policy around triple zero. That’s the communications minister. Have a listen to Annika Wells speaking to ABC TV news breakfast.

Annika Wells:

This is a catastrophic failure on the part of Optus, and it’s my job to hold them to account to make sure that they face serious consequences on the part of Australian taxpayers, but also to make sure that we restore the confidence in the system so that Australians can trust in calling triple zero when they need it most.

Rafael Epstein:

Emma, is the heat on the government well deserved or not?

Emma Dawson:

Well, ultimately, yes. its responsibility for people’s safety and lives, and that’s the fundamental first role of government, keeping citizens safe. It’s incredibly challenging. Now, I used to work for a communications minister a long time ago, and as the technology proceeds and gets ahead of regulation, it’s really difficult compared to 30 years ago where you had a fixed line and it was telecom and it went through the wires. But the industry as well has always been resistant to regulation. They push back against any form of really strong regulation. The universal service obligation that used to apply to Telstra when it was first privatised, really only applied to the fixed line network. Both Telstra and Optus have resisted getting those obligations onto mobile network.

Rafael Epstein:

You giving me reasons for why the government isn’t necessarily responsible?

Emma Dawson:

I’m giving reasons why we need to think differently about how we regulate these essential services in the modern era. Even if we were to fully nationalise telecommunications again, not suggesting we should or will, the technology is the problem.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s too complicated.

Emma Dawson:

That’s right. So ensuring that those services are maintained, yes, it is a cost to the carriers, right? But it’s an essential cost, and I do think it’s time for stronger regulation and for those obligations to be set down in legislation and to have that independent umpire to oversee things.

Rafael Epstein:

Stronger regulation, Colleen, you’d be a fan of that, wouldn’t you?

Colleen Harkin:

Nope. No, but I think the thing that worries me here is, I don’t know how you resolve this sort of stuff too. Emma, you obviously have some knowledge about it that I don’t have, but what worries me most is that they’ve gone through it before. This is not the first time it’s happened. And so what are the consequences for not having resolved it after 2022?

Rafael Epstein:

’23, yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

’23. So to me, it’s not that it happened, it’s that it has happened before and that they haven’t done what they needed to do.

Rafael Epstein:

A 100%. So I have an interest in this. We reported the Telstra breakdown. No one knew about that. I just happened to have someone who told me about it. We told Michelle Rowland’s office about that. So that just screamed a problem. Telstra had not told the government about that problem. So someone had called and made that call from Fitzroy. That story hasn’t been made public yet. I don’t know what the details are. Someone died. Did they die because of the triple zero? I don’t think so, but a whole lot of people couldn’t get through to triple zero. I am intensely aware of emergency broadcasting. I think the entire Parliament just don’t. They’re not focused on it.

Emma Dawson:

No, they’re not.

Rafael Epstein:

And I know that everyone who listens to radio stations are focused on it. We have a gazillion conversations about why isn’t there a battery in the phone tower for when the power goes? I know they’re not easy to solve. I know they’re not easy to solve.

Emma Dawson:

No, no. That is exactly what there should be. Right? And when the NBN was first rolled out, every household was to have a battery in case the NBN went down and there was to be a port-

Rafael Epstein:

Because it doesn’t work without power.

Emma Dawson:

… for essential services, essential public services, and that was cut under the last coalition government. There is no obligation on the carriers to have batteries in those towers. There should be.

Rafael Epstein:

There should be.

Emma Dawson:

This is absolutely life-and-death stuff. This is essential infrastructure, even more so now that we live our lives on the internet. And you just have to at some point say, your profits are not the most… If you choose to go into an industry to make profits in an industry that has such responsibilities-

Rafael Epstein:

You’ve got to do something.

Emma Dawson:

… then you have to accept that that is going to be a curtailment on your freedom of business operations.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, it’s more of a question. Is the battery and the tower like having a diesel backup? Is that kind of effectively what-

Rafael Epstein:

So some of them have diesel backup, some of them have a chemical cell… Some towers have backups. There’s no mandated thing. They’re experimenting with lots of things. I hate to say it too, it comes down to cost. If you want to demand there’s a backup system, I do think we are all going to have to pay more for our telecommunications. I don’t know that, but having a chat to people. Marita is calling from Anglesea. What do you want to say, Marita?

Marita:

Oh, yeah. I just heard the term essential infrastructure. As Kenneth Davidson said, when you’ve got essential infrastructure like that, it’s a natural monopoly as Steve said, and it should be nationalised. Neither Ms. McIntosh, Annika Wells or even Sarah Ferguson, when she was interviewing Ms. McIntosh, raised a mistake, it was to Privatise.

Rafael Epstein:

To privatise. Did you just say Kenneth Davidson? You said to Kenneth Davidson.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, she did. Yep.

Rafael Epstein:

That’s so nice to have him mentioned again on the radio after a long time.

Colleen Harkin:

It is.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s not going to happen though, Marita, no one’s going to nationalise the phone companies. It’s just not going to happen.

Marita:

Should have been raised, right? Like pox on both political parties. They’re on the same side. They are all on the same side. Thank you.

Rafael Epstein:

Very nice. Thanks for calling.

Emma Dawson:

Let’s reflect on that. Because the NBN is being held in public hands now, so that’s one. But these are mobile phone towers, but they do operate on publicly owned spectrum, right?

Rafael Epstein:

They do.

Emma Dawson:

The spectrum exists in the world.

Rafael Epstein:

The airwaves.

Emma Dawson:

The airwaves. We don’t manufacture that. We all own it. No one has used the term ACMA yet. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, there is a regulator that is responsible for this.

Rafael Epstein:

Doesn’t have any teen.

Emma Dawson:

And it has very-

Rafael Epstein:

No power.

Emma Dawson:

But it also doesn’t use the powers that has, Raf. So there’s questions there for the operation of the regulator and for the communication between the regulator and the minister’s office.

Rafael Epstein:

Politicians set the tone for the regulator. It’s up to the politicians. Can’t blame the regulator.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, we have many of those bureaucratic scenarios where they just don’t have any teeth. They’re paper tigers.

Rafael Epstein:

They’re not given teeth by the politicians.

Emma Dawson:

But we did try… We. When I worked for the communications minister in the 2000s, we did a big review of regulation called the Convergence Review, and a lot of what were very common sense suggestions around this kind of regulation were fiercely resisted by industry, and it was painted as some sort of Stalinist attack on the media. A lot of what was actually in that report was about exactly this stuff.

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, I know. So you’re talking there about daily Telegraph pictures dressing the then Labour government up as Nazis.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah. Honestly, I think if we were to come out with that kind of regulatory approach now, the public would be a lot more supportive of it because they’ve seen these failures occur, but ahead of my time. What can I say?

Rafael Epstein:

Chris has called from Pakenham before I find out what’s made Colleen and Emma smile this week and what they’ve been watching and listening to and everything else. Chris, what do you want to say?

Chris:

Well, I don’t know what I was doing at work for several years, but I used to send out batteries to all phone towers to Telstra. I don’t know about Optus, but-

Rafael Epstein:

Does every phone tower have a battery?

Chris:

As far as I know, yeah, because that was my job. I might’ve been doing something else for-

Rafael Epstein:

And how long ago, Chris?

Chris:

I haven’t worked for that company for probably nearly five, six years, but I used to have to book them on a crane track so they could be lifted into place.

Rafael Epstein:

There you go.

Chris:

And they go all over regional.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay. So Chris, my understanding from the phone companies is they don’t all, but I’m not sure.

Emma Dawson:

The major towers do. A lot of the retransmission or relay towers. So if you’re in an area that needs the signal to be relayed to you because of natural barriers to the spectrum, then a lot of those relay towers don’t, and that’s why you find there are pockets that fall out.

Rafael Epstein:

There you go. Emma used to work for a communications minister.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah. Can you tell?

Rafael Epstein:

Okay. Very briefly, but I want to get both of them from each of you. Colleen, something that made you smile before I get your culture share?

Colleen Harkin:

I was centred in on a porridge championship which again, who knew there is such a thing. But this lady did a thing with yoghourt flatbread, which is a toasty stuffed with rum and bananas and oatmeal as part of it and our dumb conversation in the office. Well, is it porridge or is it a toasty?

Rafael Epstein:

It’s both. That’s the joy, right? And she’s from Melbourne.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Correct. Right?

Rafael Epstein:

She’s from Melbourne.

Colleen Harkin:

So we have all these inane break conversations. A lamington is a lamington if If there’s jam in it. So this is one of our-

Rafael Epstein:

So is it not a Lamington if there’s jam?

Emma Dawson:

Look forward to the IPA paper on what’s breakfast.

Colleen Harkin:

Is it Lamington If there’s jam in it?

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

There you go.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

Lamingtons have to have jam.

Emma Dawson:

They have to have jam.

Rafael Epstein:

That’s what makes a lamington, doesn’t it?

Colleen Harkin:

There you go. So no, not everybody agrees.

Emma Dawson:

Ideological warfare over the Lamington between the IPA and the Chifley Research Centre.

Colleen Harkin:

Correct.

Emma Dawson:

Bring it on.

Rafael Epstein:

I didn’t realise that was a debate. I think it’s-

Colleen Harkin:

Correct. So is this porridge or is it a toasty that she’s won a prize for?

Rafael Epstein:

It’s joy. Emma, what made you smile?

Emma Dawson:

Oh, Taylor Swift, new album. I’ve got a tween girl. Right?

Rafael Epstein:

Couldn’t listen to her. We tried to listen. Got bored. Turned it off.

Emma Dawson:

There’s been a lot of controversy over it, but the joy that it… I just think the joy that it brings to young girls, to young women, teenage girls who they get a lot of flak and they live a pretty difficult life in this day and age. And to see them all just bursting with joy because-

Rafael Epstein:

Love it.

Emma Dawson:

… because Taylor’s put out an album.

Colleen Harkin:

I think she’s great.

Emma Dawson:

It makes me smile and I think she’s great. I think there’s a couple of good tracks on there. It’s not my favourite. I like her old stuff better than I used to.

Rafael Epstein:

Definitely. I had to turn that album off. Have you got a culture share, Colleen? Something to share?

Colleen Harkin:

Yes. The Fringe Festival starts next week and I’m going to go and see Serotonin, a thing about mental health and toxic positivity.

Rafael Epstein:

Wow.

Colleen Harkin:

A one man show. A One girl show.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen Harkin, culture vulture.

Colleen Harkin:

There we go.

Rafael Epstein:

What’s it called? Serotonin at the Fringe Festival?

Colleen Harkin:

Serotonin.

Emma Dawson:

Serotonin, that’s clever.

Rafael Epstein:

Emma?

Emma Dawson:

I don’t know if anyone’s said this already because I’ve been out of the country. The Hack on Stan. Excellent.

Rafael Epstein:

Oh, is it good?

Emma Dawson:

It is. Well, so far. I’m only two episodes.

Rafael Epstein:

David Tennant.

Emma Dawson:

Yep.

Rafael Epstein:

Robert Carlyle.

Emma Dawson:

That’s right. Robert Carlyle. Story of Nick Davies who uncovered the Murdoch phone hacking. Again, going back to my days working for communications.

Rafael Epstein:

Still there.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah, it’s an unusual kind of production. There’s a bit of fourth wall breaking with the Nick Davies stuff, but so far, I’m enjoying it.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay. That is on Stan.

Emma Dawson:

Stan.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s called Hack. If you get a chance, One Battle After Another, there’s a director called Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s got Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro. It is an incredible film. If I had my druthers, I’d just cut off the last 10 minutes. I’ve rarely watched a film where going to bed, I could recall every single phase of a two hour 40 film. He’s an extraordinary director.

Emma Dawson:

He is.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s called One Battle after Another.

Emma Dawson:

We’ll check that out.

Rafael Epstein:

It’ll get some Oscar mentions. Emma Dawson is with the Chifley Research Centre. Colleen Harkin is at the Institute of Public Affairs. Thanks to both of you.

Emma Dawson:

Thank you.

Colleen Harkin:

Thank you both.

This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on ABC Melbourne Mornings from 10 October 2025 has been edited for clarity.