Colleen Harkin on The Weekly Wrap Mornings ABC Radio Melbourne – 13 March 2026

Rafael Epstein:

And Jim texted saying, “What’s happened to the Friday rap?” It’s still here. It’s okay. Is it no longer on? This is especially for you, Colleen. I look forward to it even with the IPA hard right women. So there you go.

Emma Dawson:

Fantastic.

Rafael Epstein:

The hard right IPA woman.

Colleen Harkin:

Hard right.

Rafael Epstein:

Her official title is Colleen Harkin. She’s director of the schools programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. Good morning.

Colleen Harkin:

Good morning.

Rafael Epstein:

Jim will be happy that you’re here. Jim will also be happy that Emma Dawson is here. Emma is the executive director of the Chifley Research Centre. Good morning, Emma.

Emma Dawson:

Good morning.

Colleen Harkin:

Hard left?

Emma Dawson:

I wouldn’t say so, would you?

Rafael Epstein:

No?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, at least I’m memorable.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah, exactly. You stood out, Colleen.

Rafael Epstein:

I need to ask everyone how they would describe, where they’d put themselves on the political spectrum. No. We’d probably never get anywhere if we did that.

Emma Dawson:

No.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay. There’s plenty to get to. I just want to start with something that might seem too brutal and simple, but it’s two weeks tomorrow, Emma, that since the strikes from Israel and the US started on Iran. Is this war crazy or is it essential?

Emma Dawson:

All wars are crazy. And I don’t think any war… Initiating a war is never essential. Defence is often essential. And this is a particularly scary situation because of the people that are waging this war. I don’t think there’s a lot of rationality on either side at the moment in the US.

Rafael Epstein:

You’re talking about three governments there?

Emma Dawson:

I’m talking about Iran, I’m talking about the US, I’m talking about Israel. I think that there’s… It’s very terrifying to me. To some extent, it’s a difficult issue because as I have often been described as an imperial feminist, I think we should be imposing the values of Western feminism as far as we can around the world. That might be a controversial opinion. I fully respect people’s right to religious freedom, but I do not like to see the oppression of women with religious excuses. But that’s really not what this war is about. This is yet another Gulf Middle Eastern war over oil, and we’ve been there before, and it’s terribly distressing.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, we have been there before. Look, war is never good, right? That’s just sort of a motherhood statement as a given. But I don’t remember who said it, but somebody said words to the effect of, “You can only live in peace if your enemy lets you.” So there’s always this tension about what is the greater good? And I don’t pretend to have an answer to that, but I don’t think we can just sort of dismiss every war as being crazy or unnecessary.

Rafael Epstein:

So let me try and twist or use your words, I hope not against you. Does this war lead to greater good?

Colleen Harkin:

Maybe. I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know because Trump is sometimes a difficult person to understand and support, but I generally-

Emma Dawson:

That’s a [inaudible 00:03:11] understatement you’ve got there, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I generally sort of support his greater motives, but he is difficult to follow sometimes.

Rafael Epstein:

I’m glad you think you know what his motives are.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Well, no, I sort of think I do. To your point, Em, about the women in Iran, I fully subscribe to that view. I’m just not sure how these things ever get resolved because we’ve been here before, numbers of times before. It’s an area of the world where it just seems to happen with regularity.

Rafael Epstein:

Maybe because we’ve, the West has been interfering with that part of the world for decades?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, and in terms of religious freedom, for example, I personally believe that you’re entitled to believe whatever you want to. And if you want to live in that environment, go for it. I think the trouble is where you have a choice in those environments.

Rafael Epstein:

Well, they don’t have the political culture we have.

Colleen Harkin:

Correct.

Rafael Epstein:

They just don’t.

Emma Dawson:

And I think the fact that it’s called the Middle East, why is it called the Middle East? Because it’s the middle of the east of the UK. So there was the near east and the middle east and the far east. The way we talk about it-

Rafael Epstein:

It’s a very Western point of view, yeah.

Emma Dawson:

The way we talk about it is an imperial frame. So I don’t think there’s any realistic prospect. I do appreciate what you say. You can only live in peace if your enemy lets you, right? And I’ve got a lot of sympathy for people in Israel who have lived under that sort of threat and people in Gaza and people in Lebanon who have lived with these religious powers fighting each other for centuries, and particularly acutely in recent decades. But the idea that you’re going to stop Iran and completely change the minds of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard through a war is… If you accept that this is partly religious fanaticism, then you know that’s not going to happen.

Rafael Epstein:

I’m not sure it’s a religious fanaticism. I think it’s an entrenched powerful people with a group of economic interests, but still.

Emma Dawson:

Yes.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s 11 minutes past-

Emma Dawson:

Both those things.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s 11 minutes past 10. Emma Dawson and Colleen Harkin are with you. William is with you as well, in Hawthorne. What do you want to say, William?

William:

Hi, everyone. Yeah, this war, it’s a real worry. The thing that I really worry about is Trump. If you actually listen to him rather than just dismiss him as a raving lunatic like so many people want to do, actually listen to the words that he says. He is very imperial in his, I guess, strategy, if you could say that about Trump, that is strategic. But the thing that really worries me about him is governments around the world are making decisions based on what he is saying. And we all know that you cannot believe a single thing that comes out of his mouth. And I’ve got to the point with Trump, he’s been around for so long now, I don’t even listen to what he says. I just look at whatever an outcome is from a policy or a decision he’s made.

Rafael Epstein:

Mind you, those outcomes aren’t even that easy to spot, William. 1300-222-774. I did ask my guests if the war is crazy or essential. Let me try something else on you, Colleen. The coalition have spent much of the week talking about panic buying. One of my texts actually said it’s not panic buying, it’s survival buying. Because for a lot of people, a big increase in fuel makes a huge increase to what other money they’ve got left. But the way the coalition’s constantly raised the issue around petrol, is that crazy talk or are they fighting a really important fight?

Colleen Harkin:

No, I agree with your caller. It is survival buying for some people. There’s already a large reporting of farmers in rural areas that can’t get fuel, and that means that they can’t harvest their crop, which means it doesn’t get to supermarkets, which mean we don’t get food on the table. It is a significant issue. We only have give or take 32 or 34 days of fuel reserve in the entire supply chain in the country. So that gets depleted pretty quickly. There’s lots of people who can’t do their jobs if they don’t have fuel, tradies. Not everybody can jump on a train to get to work.

It is a significant concern for people. And the government’s talking about the reason we’ve got a problem is because of spike buying. Just as – we’ve never thought about, again, this happening. We’ve so shortsighted in all of these things. We had eight refineries, down to two, and I’m not defending the Liberal Party here because they closed four of them. Labour have closed two of them. So we’ve not-

Rafael Epstein:

You’re not telling me you want to nationalise refineries, are you?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, no, not nationalise them, but we spend so much money subsidising some things and not our independence. I’m much more supportive of the idea that we ought not to be so dependent on other countries for our core living things. We can’t survive without some of this stuff and we should make sure that we can at least survive more than 30 days. The International Energy Authority says that we should have 90. Most countries have 90 days’ supply. We’ve got 30. So we are very vulnerable-

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, we are.

Colleen Harkin:

… to those strategic things.

Rafael Epstein:

Just to come back, not that Colleen’s points aren’t important and I want you to address them, but Emma, was it crazy and dangerous for the coalition to raise those points or was it crucial and essential?

Emma Dawson:

They’re important issues and they need to be addressed in the parliament. So I don’t think it was wrong of them to raise it. I think it’s a little bit of hypocrisy going on there, given that their own track record in this space and their lack of investment in sovereign capability across a number of fronts, but that’s their job as opposition. They’ve raised the issues and the government is required to respond and that’s how people find out what’s going on. So yeah, it’s fine.

Having said that, the long-term answer is to move away from our reliance on oil and our reliance on fossil fuels, which we are now doing at pace, maybe not as fast as many people would like and as certainly as the science would have us, but as fast as I think we are able to do at the moment. And that, you want to talk about nationalising fuel supply. Well, let’s keep our renewables. Let’s nationalise the renewables grid. That’s what I’d like to see.

Colleen Harkin:

But the renewables simply can’t do some of the stuff that is required, right?

Emma Dawson:

No, we’re absolutely not at that point where you’ll have-

Colleen Harkin:

They never will be. Even, for example, trucks cannot… The weight of a truck-

Rafael Epstein:

You can have more renewables in your system.

Emma Dawson:

Yes.

Rafael Epstein:

That’s possible.

Colleen Harkin:

But what’s happening here is this supply chain issue is a real problem for our core infrastructure.

Emma Dawson:

It’s a global challenge.

Colleen Harkin:

You and me driving our car is, it’s really inconvenient. And like I said, some of us can’t get to work without a train, without, right? But the real issue is our industry and our manufacturing.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah. No one, I don’t think anyone disputes that, Colleen. I think the point is-

Rafael Epstein:

But no one wants to pay the money-

Emma Dawson:

No.

Rafael Epstein:

… to have, get oil out of the ground near Australia. I don’t know if there is oil. No one wants to pay the money to refine oil here.

Emma Dawson:

No, no. It doesn’t make economic-

Rafael Epstein:

No one wants to. Governments don’t want to.

Colleen Harkin:

That’s why over the last decade we’ve lost about 80% of our ability to do that because of a cost issue. But my view is that we paid billions of dollars to subsidise other things. I think in my view, there are certain things that we should make sure that we have enough of.

Rafael Epstein:

I reckon-

Colleen Harkin:

And that as a community we –

Rafael Epstein:

Can I ask you a provocative question?

Colleen Harkin:

Mm. Not like you.

Rafael Epstein:

The IPA would have screamed blue murder if the Labour government had proposed millions on a fuel refinery.

Emma Dawson:

Absolutely.

Colleen Harkin:

And no, I’m not talking about nationalising it, but the government subsidises lots of things, right?

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, sure.

Emma Dawson:

Yeah, look-

Colleen Harkin:

So it’s making sure that… As an example, I would say water, we have to make sure we always have enough water. And if it meant that we had to subsidise it somehow, some way differently, I would say that’s got to be a core, mandatory.

Emma Dawson:

But the key-

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, okay. Quick response, Emma?

Emma Dawson:

The key thing here is this goes against the economic ideology of the IPA over the last 80 years, which is what’s the most economically efficient thing to do? Import the fuel because we… Now, you’re right, Colleen. I think there is a recognition around the world at this crazy time that perhaps we’ve given away a little bit too much sovereignty over some of these things. That globalisation may have driven costs and prices down, but we’ve lost other very valuable things.

Colleen Harkin:

But lost national sovereignty.

Rafael Epstein:

Sovereignty means different things at different times, doesn’t it?

Emma Dawson:

It does.

Rafael Epstein:

As well as meaning different things to different people. Colleen Harkin and Emma Dawson are with you. John is with you as well. It is free call Friday, so that means you can call about whatever matters to you, and maybe if you think we’ve missed something as well. John, what do you want to raise?

John:

I was just going to make a comment, I’m a war veteran. So I do understand the need for militaries to be able to execute on government strategy. What’s really lacking here is an understanding of what actual end state is that Donald Trump is trying for. At the end of the Gulf War, we put in basically a north and south watch that kept Iraq under control. And then the US government decided that they wanted to invade in 2003. It didn’t have broad coalition support, and this certainly doesn’t again.

As a last point, I’m also driving a hybrid, so I feel that I’m in a good place at the moment, having chosen to have a hybrid because I’ve got the best of both worlds. EV for short range, and I don’t have any anxiety about long trips because I’ve also got petrol to back it up.

Rafael Epstein:

There are multiple wars that get called the Gulf War, John. So I’m just double checking. You’re involved in the war after Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early 90s?

John:

That’s correct. That was the first Gulf War and it was on the ground then. And I would… The comment I think was around, you can only have peace if your enemy allows it. We clearly had a position that the world supported through the United Nations for an action to be taken against Iraq.

Rafael Epstein:

Yes, that was different.

John:

You don’t see that now.

Rafael Epstein:

If I can ask, John, there’s 85 extra people that got sent with the surveillance plane. There are already Aussies at some of those bases in the Middle East. Excuse me. How are you feeling about them?

John:

Look, they’re providing a defensive capability in that they can observe, track, and identify targets for defensive actions. I’m comfortable that we could and should do that. We probably have the best airborne platform in the world.

Colleen Harkin:

I was actually asking, John, or what you’re thinking, or are you worried about them as people?

John:

Oh, absolutely. The figures that we know from major conflicts is if we deploy people, up to 25% of them will suffer from PTSD for various reasons, just being underneath a potential drone attack, and it can go as high as 75% if they’re under constant threat. So this is what we’re asking Australian service personnel to do, and that’s the cost that every time a politician says, “Oh, we’re going to send something,” there is going to be a cost on those individuals and their families, their children, their spouses, which most Australians will not recognise until at least Anzac Day and then we’ll all wave a flag for a day and then go back to doing what we normally do, worrying about petrol price.

Rafael Epstein:

John, thanks for your call. Any response to that, Emma?

Emma Dawson:

Well said, John. And thanks for your service.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah.

Emma Dawson:

The fact that it’s tragic, generation after generation going into these forever wars in the Middle East.

Rafael Epstein:

And also, there are millions of people sitting beneath drones and missiles right now.

Emma Dawson:

Yes, that’s right.

Rafael Epstein:

Millions.

Emma Dawson:

So I was just going to say, all of those people are at equal risk of PTSD. And to some extent you go, “Well, that’s part of the motive here.” Netanyahu wants to remove that from his people. Hezbollah and Hamas think they want to remove the threat from the other side from their people. Yes, and then we all just make it worse.

Rafael Epstein:

And I think it’s the definition of intractable. 1300-222-774 is the number. What matters? What have we missed? I’ll get back to more of your calls in a moment.

Rafael Epstein:

Emma Dawson is with the Chifley Research Centre. They are closely aligned to the Labour Party, Colleen Harkin is at the Institute of Public Affairs, and actually also sits on the Liberal Party Administrative Committee here in Victoria. We’ve got two new leaders in the coalition. Let me just check my watch. Yes, this week we’ve got a coalition. Angus Taylor is new to the job. Even newer to the job is Matt Canavan. He was elected after David Littleproud surprised everyone and resigned from the leadership on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Matt Canavan won and was cracking jokes.

Matt Canavan:

We need to have more Australian everything. We need to manifest a hyper Australia here. We need to go hyper Australia for our country. We need more Australian babies. We need more Australian humour, more Australian jokes. We need more Australian barbecues, sometimes often fueled by fossil fuels. We need more Australian everything.

Rafael Epstein:

I don’t know if that’s a policy platform or if it’s a joke. I’ll start with you, Colleen. Is he good for the coalition?

Colleen Harkin:

And I don’t think he was joking, by the way.

Rafael Epstein:

What sorry? You don’t think he was joking?

Colleen Harkin:

No, I don’t think he was joking. I think that was a lighthearted summary of his policy positions. Just plain speaking, “This is what I’m on about.” I do think… See, the trouble with the Nationals is that they’re the most vulnerable to the One Nation shift ironically, because it is that conservative voter who is attracted to them and the Liberals have acquiesced to a lot of Labour Party policies. So they’ve lost a lot of their base, who have at least thinking about moving to One Nation. And so Canavan is a known, consistent conservative. He’s held the same position his entire time in parliament. He has not wavered, which is more than you can say about a lot of MPs. So he’s very predictable in what he stands for, which is comforting for a lot of people.

Rafael Epstein:

Against the war, for free speech?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, yeah. And he-

Rafael Epstein:

Just on those two things, which are maybe not traditional issues that might divide a coalition, but if Matt Canavan is very not excited about the war, very pro free speech, doesn’t want the sorts of things the Liberal Party wants when it comes to race hate laws.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I was just about to say, there is still a lot of big ticket items that the coalition have to address that they still haven’t done. They’ve busted up twice in the last 12 or 15 months, whatever it’s been, and the really big ticket items have not been addressed properly. So I think he has the opportunity of at least stemming the bleeding that’s going on for a moment. People will give them a chance to see if they can work it out. But my personal view is that’s got to happen in a month or two. They don’t have a year or so to do this. They’ve got a very short, urgent window to convince people to come back to us. And if they don’t do it soon, it’ll be too late because they’ve created this large cohort of swinging voters on the conservative side.

Rafael Epstein:

The three major parties the pollsters are now talking about. Emma, what do you… Sorry, I’m not sure I quite got an answer from Colleen, because I don’t know the answer myself. So I get that he’s a strong Nationals leader. What does he portend for the coalition?

Emma Dawson:

It’s interesting because the policy positions are arguably even more divided under Matt Canavan than they were under Littleproud. He is absolutely in the Barnaby Joyce school. They were good friends. Matt was Barnaby Joyce’s chief of staff when I was working in the House. But what they’re looking for is someone to take on One Nation. And because this then comes down to not the policy issues, but the political calculation, because the Nationals are only useful in the coalition if they’re holding onto those regional seats so that they can form a winning coalition. If they lose those seats to One Nation, it is unthinkable that city-based Liberal Party voters, many of whom have already gone Teal, would tolerate a coalition with One Nation. So Matt is absolutely the man for that job.

He is a conviction politician. He’s from Queensland. He’s a nationalist. He’s a hypernationalist. He is against the war. He’s quite protectionist in many ways as well. So if you’re wanting someone to take on Pauline Hanson and his old boss, Barnaby, he’s the man. It will cause policy ructions, but I don’t think the Nationals have a choice because if they can’t hold onto those regional seats, they are no use to the Liberal Party as a coalition partner.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I don’t think the Liberal Party can win without the Nationals.

Emma Dawson:

That’s right. That’s right.

Rafael Epstein:

Liberal Party might not be able to win with this brand of the Nationals too.

Emma Dawson:

No, that’s right.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I think that there is that chance that, with Canavan as the team partner, that it will bring back some, the base. And I don’t know if that was intentional in the planning, but I’m sure that that’s actually what will happen. The challenge will be on those really bigger issues, does the coalition actually work as a coalition? And Matt that’s –

Emma Dawson:

Canavan’s much closer in his outlook to Andrew Hastie than he is to Angus Taylor. Angus Taylor is an old school neoliberal, globalised economics, side of big business rather than the working man. Hastie and Matt Canavan are right-wing populists. They are almost agrarian socialists in a way. They believe in manufacturing things onshore. They don’t like getting involved in international conflicts. So the interesting thing for me is going to be how long Angus Taylor can hang on without –

Rafael Epstein:

I expect Andrew Hastie to take over from Angus Taylor before the next election.

Emma Dawson:

Yep.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, the other challenge for Canavan personally is he has acted quite independently for some time and he’s crossed the floor and, as you said, he is a conviction politician and you can’t really do that as a leader-

Rafael Epstein:

It’s going to be interesting too.

Colleen Harkin:

When you’re in a coalition. So he’s going to have to-

Emma Dawson:

Fun and games.

Colleen Harkin:

It’s going to be interesting to see how he handles that. Get the popcorn people.

Rafael Epstein:

That’s exactly what I was going to say, that’s the sound of Emma and her Labour friends getting out the popcorn. 1300-222-774 is the number. Etty has dialled from Bentley. Just going back to the war in the Middle East. What do you want to say, Etty?

Etty:

I wanted to say that I agree with the panel. War is an absolutely horrific thing, and if we can avoid it, why not? Definitely. The question is, why are all the wars in the Middle East happening? And the answer is actually quite simple. It’s about the acceptance of Israel. If Israel is not accepted by Iran or the Hamas or Hezbollah, then there can be a peace. There is a peace with Egypt. There is a peace with Jordan. There is a peace with the United Arab Emirates. So countries that want to have peace, Israel is very happy to. And Israel is not jumping to have a fight with anyone. They didn’t start the-

Rafael Epstein:

Can I jump ahead of the texters, Etty?

Etty:

The 7th of October. Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

Can I jump ahead, Etty? Because I know what’s going to come when people hear you. “Israel is the problem. Israel’s aggression is the problem.” You say it’s about Israel being accepted. A whole lot of people are going to hear-

Etty:

The 7th of October did not start because Israel was aggressive.

Rafael Epstein:

Keep going.

Etty:

The 7th of October happened because the proxy, Hamas, decided to try and take Israel over. Same with Hezbollah. They’ve been organising themselves in Lebanon for decades to do what Hamas did on the 7th of October. Israel is talking with countries. They were about to break an agreement with Saudi when 7th of October happened, and there’s some speculations that it happened because of that. Israel is not intending to have wars, but if a country says, “We want to extinct you,” what options… And act on it, by the way, because they haven’t done anything with Iran for many, many years. But when action started, what are the options?

Rafael Epstein:

Thanks for your call, Etty. 1300-222-774 is the number. It is Free Call Friday, so I will try to get to more calls. I want to continue our conversation about AI as well. Sorry, I just want to bring in John as well, because I think John has got something to say about… Colleen mentioned trucks and renewables, I think. John, what do you want to say?

John:

I wanted to say that it’s nonsense that trucks can’t run on renewables. There was a company at Gosford’s that started running trucks on batteries and having change over battery stations along the way. And now the batteries, of course, with the technological improvements are now able to go seven, 800 kilometres. So I think that Australia is blessed with wonderful solar energy and wonderful wind energy. And it’s ridiculous to say that we need diesel. We only need diesel because we were so far behind in our technological development due to the previous Conservative government.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay, John. Colleen, I’m going to ask you to do two things. Feel free to reply, but you’ve got to keep it brief. And also, I would like you to give everybody your culture share, being the cultured –

Colleen Harkin:

Next time I’ll bring in some stats about trucks, because it is interesting what’s going on in terms of the size of the batteries that are required, productivity that enables and the cost involved. I’ll do that next time. So my culture share is I watched Inside the Manosphere, Louis Theroux.

Emma Dawson:

I haven’t watched it yet.

Colleen Harkin:

I really like his work. I’ve always liked Theroux’s work. I always find it quite interesting, his interviewing style. I think it’s one of those things that, in some respect, there’s nothing new in it, except that there are some really interesting small bits of insights that I think every parent should watch it with their teenage boy, because it does show the level of just the hypocrisy that is involved with these people. And it’s just money grabbing and all of that kind of stuff. It’s an industry as opposed to necessarily genuine beliefs, and it is a toxic message. And I thought one of the most interesting things was the vulnerability of some of the people who were drawn to it. They’re good, decent young men who are looking for some kind of pathway in life. That’s where they start and they find these people and they just get dragged into this culture of… It’s hugely offensive and disgusting kind of attitudes, but these people start from a really innocent and good place.

Rafael Epstein:

Interesting.

Colleen Harkin:

Really vulnerable people. And a couple of interviews with some of these guys’ mother and girlfriends and things, and just the level if you… It’s worth a watch. It’s an hour and a half and watch it with your teenage boys.

Rafael Epstein:

So that’s Inside-

Colleen Harkin:

Inside the Manosphere.

Rafael Epstein:

Inside the Manosphere. It’s set on Netflix. Emma?

Emma Dawson:

Well, another Netflix, but nothing so serious. Vladimir is a new six-part series with… Is it Rachel Weisz or Rachel Weisz?

Rafael Epstein:

I’m not sure. Rachel Weisz I think.

Emma Dawson:

The English actor. It’s very clever. It’s a little bit like Fleabag. It’s about sexual politics in the workplace. She plays an unnamed English professor who develops an infatuation with another young professor that comes to the school at the same time as her husband is being hauled over the coals for very long ago sexual indiscretions with students. And it’s funny. It’s unsettling. It’s a little bit sexy, but I found it a lot of fun. And it’s-

Rafael Epstein:

And that’s Vladimir as in-

Emma Dawson:

Vladimir.

Rafael Epstein:

The regular Russian name?

Emma Dawson:

Yes. That’s the name of the young man that she becomes infatuated with. And that’s that kid that’s in everything at the moment, Bridget Jones and the English actor.

Rafael Epstein:

That kid. He’s in everything. You know him?

Colleen Harkin:

Ah, yeah, that one. Leo someone. Anyway.

Rafael Epstein:

Oh, who was in One Day?

Emma Dawson:

That’s him. Yes.

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, you did know him?

Rafael Epstein:

He’s gorgeous.

Colleen Harkin:

Yes. And he-

Emma Dawson:

And you know that kid?

Colleen Harkin:

And one of the-

Rafael Epstein:

It’s Leo something.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, yeah Leo something.

Rafael Epstein:

Someone will tell me.

Colleen Harkin:

It’s a good role for him actually because he’s sort of quite a vacant sort of… She projects all this stuff onto him. So anyway, it’s good fun. Check it out.

Rafael Epstein:

So Vladimir and Inside the Manosphere. These people have got Netflix subscriptions. Colleen Harkin is at the IPA, Emma Dawson is the Chifley Research Centre. Thank you to both of you.

Emma Dawson:

Thank you.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin on ABC Radio Melbourne from 13 March 2026 has been edited for clarity.