Colleen Harkin on The Weekly Wrap Mornings ABC Radio Melbourne – 24 October 2025

In this interview, Colleen Harkin appeared on ABC Melbourne Mornings with Rafael Epstein to discuss the IPA’s research on green tape.

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:

To talk about the news of the week, we’re joined by Colleen Harkin, who’s the director of the schools programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. Good morning.

Colleen Harkin:

Good morning.

Rafael Epstein:

And Fiona Patten, who’s former Victorian MP with the Reason Party. Good morning, Fiona.

Fiona Patten:

Good morning, Raf.

Rafael Epstein:

Nice to have you back. I actually want to start with something that I’ve been approached about the most this week. We had an amazing conversation with Norliah Syer- Peterson. Norliah lost her son, Levi, just a month ago. He died from meningococcal B. The vaccine is not one of the ones that is subsidised by state or federal governments. I mean, he died a month ago. She’s already on a campaign to try and get some level of government to make that vaccine free. Here she is.

Norliah Syer-Peterson:

I don’t want anybody else to suffer like this. The pain of losing a child and watching it all happen and unfold in front of you is excruciating. And I know I am grieving, and my grief is telling me that it’s important to put the message out there so we can save other people. And my son told me this the other day, said, “Children don’t belong in heaven.”

Rafael Epstein:

It was tough. Like, I was fortunate because while she was composing herself, I had time to compose myself. I just want to hear from both of you. This is one of those public health decisions. Clearly someone’s gone… And I know this has happened. The submissions of this drug have gone to the PBAC, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, and they have looked at it and said, “Look, that’s about a million dollars per life saved. We can spend that money and save other lives for less money.” That’s a really hard thing for everyone to hear. I don’t know if that’s going to change. I don’t know if the Victorian government will come to the party. Some other state governments have because there’s been some high profile deaths. I just wonder, like, how do you square that in your mind, Fiona?

Fiona Patten:

Oh, I heard that interview, Raf, and she is such an extraordinarily brave woman just to come out so early to start talking about this. It’s a wicked decision. Our health system, we can’t sustain the health system that we have today. Now, who do we spend that million dollars on and how do we spend it? And I would hate to be the person making this decision.

Rafael Epstein:

Making the decisions.

Fiona Patten:

I honestly, listening to the interview going, yes, everyone should get that. And then when you consider what does that mean we’re going to pull away from and what does that mean that other people will miss out on? It’s a wicked decision.

Rafael Epstein:

And it’s often said, most of the money in our health system gets spent at the beginning and end of life.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

And they are also tough decisions. Colleen, as much or as little as you feel you need to say?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. I actually had tears in my eyes even just listening to that quick grab. It’s excruciating-

Fiona Patten:

Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

… to consider. And my condolences to that mom, it must be heartbreaking. But I had that injection for my child when he was a baby, and it was hundreds of dollars. So it is something that the average person can’t do. The reality of the cost involved in that is really only for those people who have the cash to be able to do it.

Rafael Epstein:

Pretty much.

Colleen Harkin:

And so that’s the same with all of our health services. What is for the benefit of the greater multiple of people, it’s a very hard decision to make. When you’re in that mom’s situation, of course, getting it and being activist for no one to have to ever go through that again, it’s terrific that she can do that.

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

But the reality of how we spend the money. The only thing I would say is that we do waste a lot of money.

Rafael Epstein:

Oh, yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

And so if we were serious about where we spend our money, when and why, I’m sure there’s funds that we can free up from areas. To your point, Fiona.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

I do think there’s places where we could be smarter how we spend money, that may well-

Rafael Epstein:

Maybe.

Colleen Harkin:

… help fund other areas.

Rafael Epstein:

Just-

Colleen Harkin:

Well, we look at things like co-health where we’ve got that-

Rafael Epstein:

Right. Sure. Yes.

Colleen Harkin:

… sort of community health that is now closing down and that’s probably one of the… Community health is probably one of the best bang for buck, yet we’re not, we’re not putting our money into that. Going to your point of not spending the money in the right places.

Rafael Epstein:

Mind you, I’ve had shadow treasurers, state and federal from both parties assure me that when they win, there’s going to be a lot more money because they’re going to identify the waste and it doesn’t happen. I don’t think it’s because they’re not trying. I do think it’s because it’s difficult to identify the waste. But 1300 triple 2 7-7-4 is the phone number. Just so you know, in South Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory, they do subsidise that vaccine. I think an additional wrinkle is that vaccine’s recently become a lot better, but it’s recently become a lot better, that costs money, so it costs more of public funds to give that to everyone. We will keep track of Norliah’s campaign though and see where that ends up. 1300 triple 2 7-7-4.

I’ll play the moment in the White House, not in the Oval Office, they did it in the cabinet room because they said they had to sign the minerals deal. Now, actually the most substantial thing out of the meeting is A; you had an American president talking about the submarines, talking about Orcas, saying the submarines would come. B; as Mel Clark pointed out to us, Australia’s been trying to get America to sign up to something around critical minerals for a long time. They got that. But of course, we also mentioned the fact that Donald Trump made his name doing exactly what you were about to hear. This is straight out of an episode of The Apprentice. He’s sitting opposite Kevin Rudd, the Sky reporter pops the question, and this is what happens.

Donald Trump:

Where is he? Is he still working for you?

Kevin Rudd:

Yeah, yeah.

Donald Trump:

Can you sit back?

Kevin Rudd:

Before I took this position, Mr. President-

Donald Trump:

I don’t like you either. I know, and I probably never will.

Rafael Epstein:

Uh, so the exploding cigar definitely ends up being in Susan Lee’s mouth at the end of the week because she said he should be sacked even after that meeting, and then her colleagues deserted her and said she was wrong. I don’t know, what’s the most important thing for you out of all of that, Colleen?

Colleen Harkin:

So had I’ve had the magic wand, I might have replaced Rudd when Trump was elected, not because of Trump, but if you have a sales business, you always want your salesperson to have a good relationship with the client. And Rudd was obviously not a fan of Trump. So I might have made that decision years ago, but all power to him. All credit where credit is due. He’s done a good job and they’ve delivered on that. I think Australia’s trouble here is being able to deliver because our existing nature positive laws are going to make actually delivering on that promise very difficult.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay, separate issue. Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

Right?

Rafael Epstein:

But potentially important issue.

Colleen Harkin:

Right? It is very important issue. And the nature-positive 2.0 that’s on the table right now, there’s a very seemingly a large chance that that’s going to fall apart and renegotiate and the Green’s want stricter regulations.

Rafael Epstein:

They do.

Colleen Harkin:

So that’s going to be a problem for us to be able to deliver on that. But I do think that… I’m not one for gotcha moments. I think Rudd has delivered and great, that’s good for us. I think Trump’s mannerisms are always a loose cannon and the way he treats things is perhaps not statesmanly enough for me, but, you know, he-

Rafael Epstein:

Well, yeah. It’s more than that though, right? Because there are no institutions, there are no rules, there are no structures, there are no frameworks, it’s all the whim of one man. So that’s-

Colleen Harkin:

Well-

Rafael Epstein:

… a terrible place to be.

Colleen Harkin:

… no, I’m not going to go on with you on that.

Rafael Epstein:

Let’s debate Trump in a moment.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah, that’s right.

Rafael Epstein:

Fiona, what’s the most important thing, because Colleen raises a great point about the environment laws, because processing this stuff, there’s a reason China dominates, it’s because no one else wants to put up with the pollution.

Fiona Patten:

That’s right.

Rafael Epstein:

They’re not actually rare, it’s just the processing is toxic.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

But what’s the biggest thing for you out of the week?

Fiona Patten:

Look, I think in that, I thought it was hilarious when Trump was saying how great a prime minister Albanese was. And then Albanese suggested that he would use that in his political ads for 2028 when you just think-

Rafael Epstein:

There is no way Anthony Albanese is using Trump in an ad.

Colleen Harkin:

No.

Fiona Patten:

In 2025, just do not mention the T word.

Rafael Epstein:

Yes.

Fiona Patten:

So I thought that was quite hilarious. But I think that where we’re seeing the new environment law overhaul at the same time as we’re trying to look at rare minerals, which are going to be very expensive for the government. We’re going to have to fund this industry-

Rafael Epstein:

Oh, yeah.

Fiona Patten:

… for the foreseeable future. So it’ll be our taxpayer money that goes into-

Rafael Epstein:

You got a phone in front of you?

Fiona Patten:

… pulling that… Yes, I do.

Rafael Epstein:

No phone without minerals, right?

Fiona Patten:

And I drive an electric car.

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, well there you go.

Fiona Patten:

And I have solar panels on my roof.

Rafael Epstein:

No modern life. There’s no modern life with that stuff.

Fiona Patten:

I get it. I get that, but it’s something that we have to recognise-

Rafael Epstein:

Yes.

Fiona Patten:

… that we’re going to pay for.

Rafael Epstein:

Do either of you think the submarines will come?

Colleen Harkin:

Not-

Fiona Patten:

No.

Colleen Harkin:

… anytime soon.

Rafael Epstein:

You don’t think they’ll come at all, Fiona?

Fiona Patten:

I don’t think they’ll come at all. But I also think that I don’t know what defence is going to look like in 15 years.

Rafael Epstein:

No.

Fiona Patten:

And I don’t actually think big, heavy nuclear submarines will actually be a major part of it.

Rafael Epstein:

Maybe not. You don’t think they’ll come, Colleen or you just think they’ll come later?

Colleen Harkin:

I think they’ll come later. I think the bigger issue here again is our defence budget. We keep getting told that we live in extraordinary dangerous times and yet our budget doesn’t reflect-

Rafael Epstein:

Donald Trump says we’re spending enough.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I mean, we’re quite naive in this stuff. I mean, we are a very exposed country. If somebody really wanted to cause us harm, it would be very easy. So we have to have good relationships with-

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, they can’t invade us though, right? We’re too big and too far away.

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t subscribe to that view. And there’s other ways of just you don’t have to come over in an aeroplane and harm us.

Rafael Epstein:

So you’re a big proponent… Let’s not talk military strategy, but you would like to spend a lot more on defence.

Colleen Harkin:

Definitely. Definitely would spend more in defence and get more serious about what our risk exposure is.

Fiona Patten:

I think one of the interesting things about the submarine deal is actually the repair shop that we’re setting up in West Australia for the subs.

Rafael Epstein:

You mean the subsidised US military base?

Fiona Patten:

The subsidised US military base. But that will probably bring more revenue, that we will see more… Because those submarines are going to take a long time yet. So repairs on the old submarines are going to be happening-

Rafael Epstein:

Well, even if we do the maintenance for the-

Fiona Patten:

… for a very long time.

Rafael Epstein:

… current American ones, that means they’ve got more of a workforce to perhaps build them for us. Maybe we end up with a permanent submarine base. Who knows? 1300 triple 2 7-7-4 is the phone number. Will the submarines ever come. Fiona Patten and Colleen Harkin are with us. Brian’s in Shepparton as well, just on the vaccines, I think. What’d you want to mention, Brian?

Brian:

Hey, morning, Raf. I just want to sort of make the point that we can’t afford everything that we create in terms of opportunity. So from a medical perspective. And notwithstanding the terrible tragedy that that mother and child suffered. Life’s about choices. And I’m someone who can afford the meningococcal vaccine for my children, but made my own choice as to not to prioritise that. And I guess at an individual level and a community and at a government level, there’s only so much money that we should spend and really it does come down to choices. Some of those choices have consequences that you would never foresee.

Rafael Epstein:

No.

Brian:

But, and again, my personal situation can absolutely afford the meningococcal vaccine, but made a choice, a fairly passive choice, not to vaccine because the risk appetite wasn’t high enough for me and I’ve got to make choices on how I spend our family income as well.

Rafael Epstein:

Interesting, Brian. Thank you. So one place I try to expand the envelope is we shouldn’t see it as a choice between one drug or another. I think actually the much tougher conversation is how much money do we spend, especially at end of life? There is so much money spent at end of life. I think if you speak to a lot of people who go through that experience with their loved ones, they’re not sure that money was well spent.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

So they think I don’t want to pit Norliah’s family or Brian’s family against a cancer drug, but I think it’s important.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

Our health system never grapples with how much intervention should there be at the beginning of life and the end of life. We never grapple with those ethical questions.

Fiona Patten:

You know, many years ago now we did the end of life choices inquiry in the Victorian Parliament.

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, sure.

Fiona Patten:

Which, as you know, led to voluntary assisted dying law reform. But one of the main parts of that inquiry was looking at end of life choices. And putting people into institutions, people ending up in hospitals for days because there’s no space in a nursing home to put them in. Where, you know, we could spend a fraction of that if we enabled people to age well at home-

Rafael Epstein:

Yes.

Fiona Patten:

… and die at home. And most people say that that’s what they want to do.

Rafael Epstein:

That’s what they want to do.

Fiona Patten:

But we’ve got financial and corporate interests in the aged care system, and I think that does affect our decision making at that point.

Rafael Epstein:

Colleen?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, look, I find the voluntary assisted dying thing very confronting. Okay? And I change my mind about it all the time, I have to say. But I think when you’re in the situation and you actually need the care, I think percentage wise, more people actually still want the medical intervention and the assistance. Not many people actually choose to assist to die. Most people actually want the medical assistance.

Fiona Patten:

I think people would like to stay at home for as long as they can.

Rafael Epstein:

Yes. And we’re struggling to do that, right?

Fiona Patten:

And to provide the medical support for people to stay at home. When you look at the numbers, it’s actually far cheaper than providing that same-

Rafael Epstein:

[inaudible 00:14:18].

Fiona Patten:

… medical support-

Colleen Harkin:

Sure.

Fiona Patten:

… in institutions.

Colleen Harkin:

Some medications have advanced exponentially. Chemotherapy now for many people is a tablet at home.

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

You know, and it has changed dramatically from the days of sitting in a chair for a couple of hours with an intravenous strip. I mean there’s huge development.

Fiona Patten:

But still our hospitals are filled with frail elderly people-

Rafael Epstein:

Who’ve got nowhere else to go.

Fiona Patten:

… who’ve got nowhere else go.

Rafael Epstein:

But that’s why the ambulances are ramping.

Fiona Patten:

And that’s costing us millions and it’s ambulance.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, and then it gets… I mean, I’m going to say, well, I hope it doesn’t come across the wrong way, but we can’t fix every problem.

Rafael Epstein:

No.

Colleen Harkin:

Right? And our expectation that we can call an ambulance and it will be there in a few minutes. I mean, I know I would want it there myself, but the reality of that expectation, it’s just not actually Totally possible.

Rafael Epstein:

And maybe I’ll end this part of the discussion to say this. The other thing that I really thought about is that Norliah said that at one stage there were 60 people in the IC room trying to save her son. And I just thought, so as tragic and as terrible as her story is, thank God we’ve got a system like that. In America, she’d be selling the house if this happened to her son.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah.

Rafael Epstein:

So this is all in the context of we’re doing really well, we could do better, definitely, but we are doing really, really well in a complex place compared to the rest of the world. I’ll get to more calls. Let me read this text from Nat in Geelong.

“I took my four-year-old for his meningococcal B vaccine yesterday. I nursed him through a mild fever last night and I was so grateful to be able to do it. Thank you, Norliah.” That’s from Nat and Geelong. So I think Nat took her four-year-old for the vaccine because of that chat. And at 22 minutes past 10:00, I’ve got a bit of breaking news for you. So we are two months, nearly two months, I think on Sunday, it’s exactly two months, month to month, since the murder of those two police officers in Port Punka.

Victoria police are clearly shifting the way they approach this. They’ve announced a new task force. It’s been established to find Dezi Freeman. It’s going to be called Task Force Summit. So it’ll be made up of crime command, anti-gangs, specialists from the fugitive squad, armed crime squad, VIPR task force, special operations, search and rescue, and remotely piloted aircraft systems members as well.

So that’s an interesting change in direction. That’s away from search and I’m just looking at that crime command, anti-gangs, VIPR, special operations, yes. I’m guessing that’s much more intelligence and even seeing if there’s some criminal underworld link to him being able to evade maybe. But anyway, that’s clearly indicating a change in Victoria Police approach to that. That $1 million reward remains. And by the way, the Mount Buffalo National Park fully reopens to the public today. So they’re clearly changing the way they are pursuing him.

That brings up the police and crime. We’ll get to that with Colleen and Fiona.

Rafael Epstein:

There are, if I say crime in Victoria, I think that evokes different things for different people. For some people, they want more for prevention to help young people. For others, they are upset that people get bail. For other people, if you even say crime and police, they talk about protests, and that might be the heavily armoured police response to protests, or it might be the regular protests that make it hard to move around the city on the weekend. So all of those things get thrown under the crime banner at the moment. I did have a chat to the Shadow Attorney-General James Newbury this morning about a range of things. Here’s part of what he said.

James Newbury:

We are sick to death of the level of crime in this state. Everyone is, it is just out of control. We don’t want to hear more talk about it. We don’t want to hear deputy premiers trying to talk tough. Outcomes are what matters. Less crimes are what matters.

Rafael Epstein:

I’m going to open the can of worms with Fiona Patton, who used to be the Reason Party and Colleen Harkin from the IPA. Fiona, how do you look at that crime banner or crime problems in Victoria right now? What’s the most important part of it for you?

Fiona Patten:

I chaired the criminal justice inquiry, which was a substantial body of work, and we’re not spending enough at the beginning. Once someone hits the criminal justice system, they become exponentially more likely to hit it again, to commit further and further crimes. Now, we’ve got people going from zero to a hundred at the moment with the violent crimes that we are seeing being committed by young people. But what are we doing to stop it?

And we are not doing enough. We are still leaving large groups of people in a really unequitable systems, looking at our young migrant folk, young migrant boys in particular, who are just ostracised and excluded. You see police, police targeting them. So there’s a lack of trust with police. There is so much more we should be doing at the beginning. And without investing in that you can keep building more jails, but you have to let them out and recidivism will continue to grow in this state.

Rafael Epstein:

I will hand-ball to Colleen. Just worth mentioning, I think last time I looked, there’s about 15 million spent on crime prevention programmes, that stuff, youth workers in suburbs, et cetera. I think you can lock up six or seven kids for a year in the Cherry Creek prison for that amount of money. So we’re spending dozens of millions on prevention and billions on custodial things. But Colleen, that original question that I put to Fiona, what’s the biggest thing in your mind when it comes to crime?

Colleen Harkin:

I think the average Victorian is genuinely concerned about the crime rate. They genuinely have got to the stage of they actually don’t feel safe wandering around by themselves anymore, and particularly in some areas. That footage of the girl walking, the chef walking to work is genuinely in the true sense of the word. The protests, the throwing rocks at the police, all of that kind of stuff. I mean, there’s this energy that’s a blanket across the state where people really are worried about how they’re going about their business. Home invasions, murders. I mean, James Newbury is right. It is out of control. I disagree with you, Fiona, that I think what’s shown time and time and time again is that zero tolerance is what changes the dial, and that we have had-

Fiona Patten:

Actually, Colleen-

Colleen Harkin:

Well no, the stats do show it, and Queensland-

Fiona Patten:

But the evidence shows it doesn’t.

Colleen Harkin:

Well it does, and Queensland have just shown that they change their laws and they have had a 17% reduction in crime in 18 months. So we are now tolerating the intolerable and that that is changing dramatically Victoria’s sort of tone.

Fiona Patten:

I think Colleen, going to that point though, and as Raph pointed, it costs over a million dollars to lock up a child. Now, is that what we should do? I mean, for a million dollars, you could-

Rafael Epstein:

I think it’s close to two at Cherry Creek.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah. You could send that child to Geelong Grammar, wrap them around with… not that I’m saying that possibly is a good idea, but they could have tennis coaches, European ski holidays. And you could wrap support around the family for probably a fraction of the cost of locking that child up and almost ensuring that that child will commit another crime.

Colleen Harkin:

But your assumption there is that because a person doesn’t send their child to Geelong Grammar that we can excuse home invasions and machetes, and it doesn’t go hand in hand. When you-

Rafael Epstein:

I think she was saying if you spend the money in other ways.

Colleen Harkin:

Right, but if you break into someone’s home with a machete in the middle of the night, you know you are doing the wrong thing, and there should be no excuse for that. We have to establish the fact that as a community, we all have a right to feel safe and there is a guaranteed understanding.

Rafael Epstein:

Can I ask you a question then?

Colleen Harkin:

Mm-hmm.

Rafael Epstein:

Yeah, I think you’re right. If you’re doing that, there’s a big part of you that knows you’re doing the wrong thing. The question is what comes next? So my question to you is, half of the people that go to jail go to jail again within two years time. How do we stop that from happening?

Colleen Harkin:

Right, so I agree with you. The recidivist race is unhelpful once somebody, an adult or child, goes into that scenario.

Rafael Epstein:

It’s crime university, right?

Colleen Harkin:

Right. And overseas there are a lot of programmes where you may or may not agree, and I’m using it as an example of you… It’s like a “boot camp.” You actually get taken somewhere and you’re given training.

Rafael Epstein:

You just want something somewhere.

Colleen Harkin:

Right, and it doesn’t have to be jail. It can be a reform kind of programme that establishes the rule of law, how we work as a community.

Rafael Epstein:

Well, I mean Malmsbury had a of a whole lot of TAFE skills and those sort of things, and for a lot of different reasons it didn’t work.

Fiona Patten:

And Malmsbury also had this really lovely interaction with the local community which was-

Rafael Epstein:

But it fell apart, right? We don’t put prison officers much.

Fiona Patten:

That’s right.

Rafael Epstein:

There was such violence.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, The other thing is that we don’t separate the issue of violent and non-violent crimes. So our jails are often full of people who are not violent, not a risk to the community, and we’re not dealing strongly enough with those people who are a risk to the community. So we sort of need reform in that whole umbrella area of justice.

Rafael Epstein:

You might be right that we don’t separate. Successive governments tell us that corrections try to separate the violent and the non-violent. Whether or not that’s happening, they say they try to make that separation. I’m not sure. If I can bring John in because we mentioned the critical minerals issues, and again, processing critical minerals is incredibly toxic. I don’t know how much of that’s actually going to happen in Australia, but John wanted to mention that from Warburton. What do you want to say, John?

John:

Yeah, morning Raf, morning panel. Well, apparently Australia’s going to be awash with money with all these critical minerals, this money coming in. Look, part of that could go in, could be put into the health system through the federal government and syphoned off to the states. And also, given the abhorrent waste of money that Robodebt has cost this country, and still costing paying it back, that money could have been put into the health system and then subsidised these injections for the kids.

Rafael Epstein:

Maybe.

John:

I just don’t get it that the wealth that this country, has and it’s going to have, that we are struggling in our health and education systems in this country.

Rafael Epstein:

I hear what you’re saying.

So a final word from both of you. I’ll start with you, Fiona. Do you think we will end up harnessing more of our nation’s wealth for the government services we’d all love to have?

Fiona Patten:

Look, well I think it’s interesting that the first cab off the rank on the rare minerals’ money grab is Gina Rinehart. So her deal with our [inaudible 00:07:54].

Rafael Epstein:

But she’s a miner.

Fiona Patten:

Yeah. So our first billion goes to a multi-billionaire. So no, I don’t hold a lot of faith in that.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay. Colleen?

Colleen Harkin:

I just think the whole renewable scenario is, it’s money for people who already have it. It’s the death of our country. I mean, we could have a whole afternoon this conversation.

Fiona Patten:

[inaudible 00:08:16]. I know.

Colleen Harkin:

You can’t do that. That’s not fair. It’s not fair. Our national security, our [inaudible 00:08:22]

Fiona Patten:

You and I want to tear it apart. I’ve got to go to the headlines. Okay. That’s my weekend homework. Colleen, when you’re not having a go at renewables, quickly, what are you reading? What are you watching?

Colleen Harkin:

I want to give a plug for an IPA, a project of the Institute of Public Affairs initiated by the wonderful John Roskam.

Rafael Epstein:

This is called log rolling, but keep going.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, but John Roskam, who sat in this chair for a long time on the Weekly Wrap. Tony Abbott’s new book, Australia a History. It is about the remarkable achievements of Australia. We’re not perfect, but it’s a long overdue sort of assessment of how great we are and the things we should be celebrating.

Rafael Epstein:

I’ll log roll right back because my interview with Tony Abbott is on the ABC website, and I spoke to him about his book. Fiona, quickly, something you’re watching or reading.

Fiona Patten:

Look, I am planning to watch Celeste, which is about a very boring sixty-year-old tax investigator who gets the job of her life in investigating a Latin singer, possibly a bit like Shakira. Anyway, it’s on SBS and it sounds fabulous.

Rafael Epstein:

Okay, Celeste.

Look, coming up Friday, changing tracks always. And if you’ve got a pope and a king praying together, is that actually full circle on 500 years of European history? Maybe it is. Let’s get some news.

This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on ABC Melbourne Mornings from 24 October 2025 has been edited for clarity.