Speaker 1: I'll get a team.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another installment of the Bloody You Project. Tiffany
Speaker 2: and Cooker's over there. I'll briefly say a loo to
Speaker 2: her because she's got self esteem issues and she's an
Speaker 2: only child.
Speaker 3: Hi, thank you, Harps. I'm just keeping a float with
Speaker 3: the self esteem thanks to.
Speaker 1: That, emotional issues being kept in check. You all right,
Speaker 1: just just thank you. Therapy still with doctor Bill or.
Speaker 3: Have cooked tomorrow? Actually, oh god.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bill. Osie's beach ause to you. Yeah, I know, Zohey,
Speaker 2: have you ever thought about therapy? Maybe that's we can't
Speaker 2: talk about that overtly, but you probably need therapy on
Speaker 2: a constant base basis with your life.
Speaker 4: You know, when I was a phone correspondent, the ABC
Speaker 4: used to offer counseling after traumatic assignments, but I gave
Speaker 4: up having it because often when I would speak to
Speaker 4: the counselor, they would spend the whole session going, oh
Speaker 4: my god, that's so.
Speaker 3: Terrible, Oh my god, Oh I don't know how you
Speaker 3: dealt with that. Oh that's shocking.
Speaker 4: And me, in the end, I felt like I was
Speaker 4: counseling them, so it wasn't overly productive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure that it's great when the therapist
Speaker 2: is coming out more traumatized than the patient.
Speaker 1: But well done, that's a good effort by you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, And not to denigrate the efforts of the counselors,
Speaker 4: who I'm sure were giving it their best effort, but
Speaker 4: some of the stories were a little bit extreme.
Speaker 2: Did that in all seriousness without being specific? Like, is
Speaker 2: that stuff you still live with?
Speaker 1: Do you had?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no when you talk about stress and
Speaker 2: trauma and going through things like that, there's no three
Speaker 2: step plan. How did you navigate and manage that?
Speaker 3: I think it's still with me for sure.
Speaker 4: I Mean when I was a journalist, I covered lots
Speaker 4: of immense trauma in climate disaster situations, particularly with a
Speaker 4: big hurrican or typhoon, bushfires, you know, covered mass shootings,
Speaker 4: of plane crashes, terrorist attacks.
Speaker 3: So this stuff's really and it stays with you.
Speaker 4: And look, I think in many ways it's made me
Speaker 4: a more empathetic person actually, And you know, everything that
Speaker 4: happens in your life.
Speaker 3: Becomes part of you.
Speaker 4: But there's no doubt that I don't like being in
Speaker 4: big crowds, for example, and confined spaces because I've covered
Speaker 4: mass shootings and I have that sort of in the
Speaker 4: back of my mind. So you can't just shake these
Speaker 4: experiences off. In many ways, being a front correspondence kind
Speaker 4: of like being a paramedic or you know, an emergency
Speaker 4: responder because often you're there very early in the piece
Speaker 4: and what your witness is stuff that other people don't see.
Speaker 2: Were you compelled to be a journal like did you
Speaker 2: fall into that? Is that something you wanted to do,
Speaker 2: Were you fascinated with it? How did you end up there?
Speaker 4: So when I was fifteen and I wanted to be
Speaker 4: a horse vet because I grew up riding horses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as you do.
Speaker 4: My science teacher said, look, you'll get through vet science,
Speaker 4: but you're a really good writer, and maybe you should
Speaker 4: just play to your strengths. And so from the time
Speaker 4: I was fifteen, I decided I was going to be
Speaker 4: a journalist. And then I went and did an arts
Speaker 4: journalism degree, and through that I decided I wanted to
Speaker 4: be a foreign correspondent, and I just set about building
Speaker 4: the skills that you need because you need to be
Speaker 4: a really good multitasker, and especially in the modern media world,
Speaker 4: you need to be able to do everything for yourself.
Speaker 3: You need to be really self reliant.
Speaker 4: So I just said about ticking those boxes so that
Speaker 4: I could test myself internationally.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 2: Being a politician, being a journal is it's about many things,
Speaker 2: but maybe one of the commons denominators is how do
Speaker 2: I build trust and respect and rapport and connection with
Speaker 2: a group of people that are going to be paying
Speaker 2: attention to me and my stuff?
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 2: Like that is one of the one of the skills
Speaker 2: that you need is to be able to share what
Speaker 2: can be uncomfortable or complicated messages in a way that's resonant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's sort of the outward facing part of it.
Speaker 4: But I think actually the main thread between the two
Speaker 4: things is listening and also listening without judgment. So you know,
Speaker 4: when I was covering Donald Trump, for example, during the
Speaker 4: first Trump administration, I covered the twenty sixteen election and
Speaker 4: then lived in Washington and covered the White House, I
Speaker 4: spent a lot of time talking to Trump supporters trying
Speaker 4: to understand why they were supporting him despite his obvious
Speaker 4: flaws around treatment of women and a whole range of stuff.
Speaker 4: And you know, you just learn to have conversations differently,
Speaker 4: and I think that's really useful in politics.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting Stephen Covey wrote a book which
Speaker 2: you've probably heard of or maybe read one hundred years
Speaker 2: ago called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, And
Speaker 2: I think chapter four maybe or one or is you know,
Speaker 2: seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's really how do you do that?
Speaker 1: And how do you.
Speaker 2: Because we're all emotional, right, doesn't you know unless you're
Speaker 2: a complete sociopath, But how do you try to tone
Speaker 2: down the emotion and your subjective kind of feelings and
Speaker 2: just not let that come through the objective reporting or messaging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're going to have your own personal reaction
Speaker 3: to things, I think, and you've got to accept that.
Speaker 4: Your background, your upbringing, your life experiences, your current circumstance
Speaker 4: may influence the way that you interpret something. But then
Speaker 4: to be able to pause that and try and literally
Speaker 4: put yourself in someone else's shoes, or often describe it
Speaker 4: as looking through the other side of the prism to think, well,
Speaker 4: how would this affect a person that I'm talking to?
Speaker 4: And I think that when you're talking about policy and legislation,
Speaker 4: that's really useful because you can go, well, what are
Speaker 4: the unintended consequences of this, or what are the things
Speaker 4: in this.
Speaker 3: That might not occur to me.
Speaker 4: And then you sort of go digging around for real
Speaker 4: world impact of whatever it is that you're trying to
Speaker 4: develop in terms of structural changes that affect people's lives.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's what we do in the parliament. We
Speaker 4: make laws, we make policies that affect people, and they
Speaker 4: have to just keep bringing it back to that all
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested in I said to you before we
Speaker 2: started rolling, I'm not a particularly political person, so we're
Speaker 2: not going to have a political conversation, which may or
Speaker 2: may not be good to good news to you. But
Speaker 2: my PhD is around a thing called metaperception, which is,
Speaker 2: in simple terms, your ability to understand the Zoe experience
Speaker 2: for others you know, or my experience to understand what's
Speaker 2: it like being around Crag or listening to gregor being
Speaker 2: in an audience or you know whatever, And to also,
Speaker 2: I guess, understand how other people think and see things,
Speaker 2: which is theory of mind. This is a weird question,
Speaker 2: but it's interesting for me. What do you think? How
Speaker 2: do you think people? This is not loaded by the
Speaker 2: way I ask a lot of people this, how do
Speaker 2: you think people see you? Because on the one hand,
Speaker 2: we go some people will go, I don't give a
Speaker 2: fuck how people see me. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: it matters how people see us, Right, how do you
Speaker 2: do How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So I guess the way I speak to it is
Speaker 4: around sort of my aspiration of who I try to be.
Speaker 4: You know, no one is ever perfect, right, but if
Speaker 4: the starting point is treat people as you want to
Speaker 4: be treated, be respectful, be empathetic, but also be direct,
Speaker 4: be honest. You know that it's never going to be
Speaker 4: perfect for all people. And I think that's one of
Speaker 4: the problems with politics if that, you know, our political
Speaker 4: leaders just don't want to say, well, you know, some
Speaker 4: people are not going to be happy with this. It's
Speaker 4: never going to be one hundred percent perfect. There's always
Speaker 4: going to be sort of winners and losers. So to
Speaker 4: just try and be that good faith actor and also
Speaker 4: call stuff out like be real yes, and you know again,
Speaker 4: be the listener, like.
Speaker 3: Do that really.
Speaker 4: Direct community work here, talk to people, listen to people,
Speaker 4: try and hear people out, even if the experience of
Speaker 4: life is totally different to mine. I mean that's sort
Speaker 4: of the whole point to try to then come up
Speaker 4: with solutions which are broadly beneficial to most people. I
Speaker 4: think that's sort of the best that you can hope for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I guess like what I find interesting is
Speaker 2: and even for me, like we've got we go into
Speaker 2: ninety countries, we don't have I mean, we're in terms
Speaker 2: of Australian kind of personal development kind of show. We
Speaker 2: have a lot of listeners, which is good. But you know,
Speaker 2: I'm always like, I genuinely want to be the most
Speaker 2: you know, without being inappropriate, the most authentic, real version
Speaker 2: of me that I can be for people, right, not
Speaker 2: because that's good pr or not because you know, but
Speaker 2: just that that's how I am, and that sometimes that
Speaker 2: works well and sometimes it's a fucking nightmare, right, But
Speaker 2: that's okay. But at the same time, I still want
Speaker 2: people to like me and like my brand and come
Speaker 2: to my workshops and listen to my show. So there's
Speaker 2: this kind of like there's this challenge where you want
Speaker 2: to be real and authentic and you don't want to
Speaker 2: be a kind of a manufactured facsimile or a persona.
Speaker 1: But at the same time you've got a brand and
Speaker 1: an image to maintain.
Speaker 2: How do you kind of be authentic because you've got
Speaker 2: people who as as which you should, you know, who
Speaker 2: help you create a brand and pr and all that.
Speaker 2: Of course, how in the middle of all of that
Speaker 2: do you not just become a PERSONA.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's funny because when I first started doing this,
Speaker 4: well after I was selected as to be a candidate
Speaker 4: a community organization back in twenty twenty one, and I
Speaker 4: had my ad team and they described me as the product.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not a bloody product, you know,
Speaker 3: like I'm a person.
Speaker 4: But you know, of course, advertising people are trying to
Speaker 4: sell something, so in this case, they're trying to sell me.
Speaker 4: The thing is, though, that I'm still in control of that,
Speaker 4: like I still have my red lines, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: you have to portray me as I really am, like
Speaker 4: you know, as I do think of myself or try
Speaker 4: to aspire to be the honest broker, the person of integrity,
Speaker 4: the one who's direct he'll call stuff out, who thinks independently,
Speaker 4: you know, all those things. So it's sort of different
Speaker 4: to you know, selling a can of coke but not
Speaker 4: telling people it's sugar. It's actually trying to be authentic
Speaker 4: with that branding, like trying.
Speaker 3: To sort of draw out the pieces of me that.
Speaker 4: Me and my team think people need to see in
Speaker 4: order to understand what I can do for them in
Speaker 4: the Parliament that's different to what they've previously had.
Speaker 1: What about being in the media and journalism broadly helped
Speaker 1: you in politics?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 2: I guess obviously the fact that you're talking all the
Speaker 2: time and you're a good communicator. Is there anything else
Speaker 2: that kind of was a nice preparation for your four
Speaker 2: A MS politics more than a four A, but you're
Speaker 2: entrein into the world of politics.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I think one thing is that with all the
Speaker 4: stuff that I've done, like covering Trump and politics around
Speaker 4: the world and Wall Street and refugee camps and terrorism
Speaker 4: and plane crashes and climate disasters and all those sorts
Speaker 4: of things, that a lot of that stuff provides really
Speaker 4: good context for the kinds of decisions that I.
Speaker 3: Have to make or the understanding of the world that
Speaker 3: I need.
Speaker 4: But I also think that, you know, getting back to
Speaker 4: this who are you kind of peace, the mental toughness
Speaker 4: of being a foreign correspondent, you know, I mean, I've
Speaker 4: had to keep myself safe and my team safe in
Speaker 4: all sorts of really hairy situations.
Speaker 3: I've had to be a problem solver.
Speaker 4: I've had to be you know, sort of tenacious and nimble.
Speaker 4: And also as a female journal you know, you get
Speaker 4: a lot of flat from people, and that's very similar
Speaker 4: as an MP, not only for female lamps, but I
Speaker 4: think it's you know, higher for female MPs. So that
Speaker 4: degree of understanding that if you're in the public eye,
Speaker 4: you know you're going to get sprayed all the time,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people won't do it for that reason,
Speaker 4: to be fair, and I totally hear that.
Speaker 3: But you know, so I didn't go into it blindly.
Speaker 4: Obviously, I knew what to some degree what that was like,
Speaker 4: and I knew what that would be like. And also
Speaker 4: getting back to sort of having conversations with people who
Speaker 4: don't necessarily agree.
Speaker 3: With me or pissed off with me for some reason. Yeah,
Speaker 3: then I'm up for that.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm up for people to tell me that
Speaker 4: they're not happy with me. It's not comfortable, but I'm
Speaker 4: up for hearing that.
Speaker 2: Wow, And I mean it's inevitable, it's unavoidable. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have you know, we have a really loyal following,
Speaker 2: but I get at least one or two emails a
Speaker 2: day from someone going you're a fuck.
Speaker 1: With or whatever.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: I had a bloke who sent me an email that
Speaker 2: said he wanted to put me in a plane, fly
Speaker 2: me over an active volcano and drop me in it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, dear Brian, thanks for your feedback. You know,
Speaker 2: really that seems extreme, Brian.
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Find you know, as from the outside looking in, I
Speaker 2: find politics really interesting from a human behavior point of
Speaker 2: view and from a psychology point of view and a
Speaker 2: sociology point of view. And sometimes when people are talking
Speaker 2: about political this or political that, or this candidate or
Speaker 2: that candidate, or this person or that person, and I
Speaker 2: feel like the reason that they don't like that person
Speaker 2: is purely emotional. It's like they don't like how they look.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what what or that? What about his wow?
Speaker 2: What about his fucking annoying voice? I'm like, well, that's
Speaker 2: a good reason not to vote for him, I mean,
Speaker 2: or to vote or it just seems like it's got
Speaker 2: not a lot to do sometimes with any kind of
Speaker 2: awareness or understanding policies or yeah, is that a hard
Speaker 2: thing to contend with? When you know that people are
Speaker 2: forming hard opinions of you based on let's be honest,
Speaker 2: fuck all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it can be frustrating. There's also this kind of oh,
Speaker 4: what would you know, missy that kind of thing, and
Speaker 4: it's like, well, I used I was a foreign correspondent
Speaker 4: for fifteen years, you know, so what have you been
Speaker 4: up to over that time?
Speaker 3: That kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And you know, look, while I say I'm up for
Speaker 4: the conversation, I mean I'm not up for abuse.
Speaker 3: I think there's there are lines, and you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of.
Speaker 4: Those lines get crossed, particularly in the digital world, but
Speaker 4: increasingly on the street, where people feel, you know, quite
Speaker 4: enable to scream at me and swear at me for
Speaker 4: no reason that has any particular foundation. But I think
Speaker 4: that you have to kind of just be able to
Speaker 4: let that go to some degree. And also I think
Speaker 4: there's some level of de escalating and having those conversations
Speaker 4: with people to say, well, what's your actual issue here?
Speaker 4: Like what do you what are you say angry with me?
Speaker 4: You know, and if you can at least sort of
Speaker 4: draw that thread out, often there's something else entirely that's
Speaker 4: going on in that person's life that means that they're
Speaker 4: generally furious with everyone or all politicians or or people
Speaker 4: in leadership, and you know, sometimes we can help with
Speaker 4: whatever that thing is. You know, they might be having
Speaker 4: great difficulty navigating you know, the centerlingk system or whatever
Speaker 4: it might be some government system, in which case sometimes
Speaker 4: we can support them through that process. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: think it's just, you know, while not sort of tolerating
Speaker 4: that over the top abuse, trying to draw out those
Speaker 4: conversations that can be had to try to find that
Speaker 4: common ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I when I did my when I went to
Speaker 2: UNI for the first time, one of my lecturers, who
Speaker 2: was a professor, he said to.
Speaker 1: Me, mister Harper, what did you say, something like.
Speaker 2: If you don't want to basically, if you don't want
Speaker 2: any piss anyone off or then say nothing, do nothing,
Speaker 2: be nothing, and stand for nothing. I'm like, that's true,
Speaker 2: because the moment that you get a bit of a
Speaker 2: tention or profile, someone who's never met you, never had
Speaker 2: a conversation with you, doesn't know you, is going to
Speaker 2: hate you or at the very.
Speaker 1: Least you know. So I guess that's part of it.
Speaker 2: And so like, obviously you're very resilient, you've been through
Speaker 2: a lot of shit in a lot of different environments
Speaker 2: and scenarios and challenges without giving away anything you don't
Speaker 2: want to give away.
Speaker 1: Or state secrets. How do you?
Speaker 2: How do you manage you? How do you manage your
Speaker 2: mental and emotional health?
Speaker 1: How do you? How do you?
Speaker 2: Because you, apart from all the other amazing shit that
Speaker 2: you are, you know, in a loving, caring way, still
Speaker 2: a human, how do you manage you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I think I'm pretty blessed with my family.
Speaker 4: I've got a sixteen year old daughter and an eighteen
Speaker 4: year old son.
Speaker 3: Husband is just a superstar in terms of.
Speaker 4: His very active involvement with the kids and the running
Speaker 4: of the house and you know everything, all of that
Speaker 4: sort of functional stuff in our life and has been
Speaker 4: for years because you know, as a foreign correspondent, who
Speaker 4: would get a call and I'd be on a plane
Speaker 4: next minute, not back for two weeks. And so he
Speaker 4: works full time and has his own career, but he's
Speaker 4: really involved, and so the structure of our life keeps running,
Speaker 4: you know, the routine of our life keeps running, even
Speaker 4: though I'm like a ping pong ball. And also the
Speaker 4: kids are really supportive of this work, and it was
Speaker 4: actually them, my son, particularly the older one, who said
Speaker 4: when I was asked to run, and I was pretty
Speaker 4: reluctant because politics can be pretty toxic, and he said, Mum,
Speaker 4: someone's got to do something for us, you know, someone's
Speaker 4: got in get in the room for the young people
Speaker 4: and actually space up for us. And now when I
Speaker 4: have my bad days, when I'm like, why the hell
Speaker 4: am I doing this? You know this happened, that happened,
Speaker 4: someone said X y Z and he's just like, oh,
Speaker 4: come on, mum, you know, stop being a woos. So
Speaker 4: you know they're good, like they keep it real. You
Speaker 4: try to have good family time. Like when we can
Speaker 4: have family time, we try to have it. And my
Speaker 4: other good outlet is running.
Speaker 3: I just like to go for a run.
Speaker 4: I'm in my own head when I run, I blast
Speaker 4: my you know, motivational confidence tracks in my headphones and
Speaker 4: that's kind of my escape.
Speaker 2: So so if you if you couldn't be a politician
Speaker 2: or a journal would it have been a vet?
Speaker 1: Would that would that have been the path?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I really wanted to be an Olympic equestrian,
Speaker 4: but my family were not moneyed enough to support that
Speaker 4: kind of pathway.
Speaker 3: Because horses are very expensive.
Speaker 4: But that was sort of my dream, and yeah, look
Speaker 4: I do. I yearn for it a bit because you know,
Speaker 4: I grew up in Tazzy in that sort of ear
Speaker 4: and seventies and eighties where I'd be dropped off at
Speaker 4: the horses at seven o'clock in the morning Mum or
Speaker 4: dad had picked me up after dark in the freezing cold.
Speaker 4: I would have been out all day. You know, if
Speaker 4: you fall off the horse, you get back on. If
Speaker 4: the fence is broken, you fix it and build a
Speaker 4: lot of resilience. But also a love of the outdoors.
Speaker 4: And you know, we're so lucky in Australia, the open
Speaker 4: spaces that we have, and so I like when I
Speaker 4: can get out into nature, I can breathe. And if
Speaker 4: I can get out, you know, down the grad ocean
Speaker 4: road occasionally and go for a run or get down
Speaker 4: to the beach, you know that that gives.
Speaker 3: Me a lot of energy to keep moving forward.
Speaker 2: The has the also the exercise physiologist asking you here,
Speaker 2: excise scientists, I should say, how's the body holding up?
Speaker 2: At whatever you are fifty ish? Has it holding up?
Speaker 3: Oh God, it's so boring, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like a few niggles, A few niggles like a
Speaker 4: bit of plant fascy it itis, a bit of the
Speaker 4: sore heap here and there. Took up swimming to take
Speaker 4: the pressure off from the running. Got a frozen shoulder,
Speaker 4: so then went to running.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this side of.
Speaker 4: Fifty is is annoying because you don't kind of realize
Speaker 4: that you've aged, but your body likes to tell you
Speaker 4: that you have.
Speaker 3: And that's very dull.
Speaker 2: It starts, shit starts to fall off, doesn't it, Tiff.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know. I'm not there yet.
Speaker 2: Well, we know you're not fifty, but you're forty two
Speaker 2: and you're bearing down.
Speaker 3: And it is starting to fall off. The wheels are
Speaker 3: getting wobbly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's because, as we were talking about before
Speaker 2: Zoe got on, you're riding motorbikes and you got your
Speaker 2: you got your shoulders pointing one way and your head
Speaker 2: pointing another way, and you're in severe neck extension and
Speaker 2: you're fucking up your neck. But anyway, that's why you
Speaker 2: need a naked bike, not a sports bike. You can
Speaker 2: sit more upright, but that's for another day. Zoe, back
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Tell me about like I was talking to one of
Speaker 1: your team. I won't mention his name.
Speaker 2: Francis the other day and he was telling me that
Speaker 2: you've got I don't know if I'm meant to say
Speaker 2: this will cut.
Speaker 1: There's out like a thousand volunteers or something. Is that right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we have, and that's fine to talk about that,
Speaker 4: but they I mean, we've got more people coming on
Speaker 4: every day at the moment, which is just awesome.
Speaker 3: I love this point in the campaign.
Speaker 4: So we've had hundreds of volunteers throughout the time, and
Speaker 4: then of course, so closer it gets to the election,
Speaker 4: that team builds and yeah, when you get up to
Speaker 4: pre pole, because there's two weeks of pre pole before
Speaker 4: the election day, everyone who hasn't had.
Speaker 3: The time to volunteers like, okay, I'll do pre pole.
Speaker 4: So you just have hundreds of people jumping on board
Speaker 4: and it's really exciting.
Speaker 3: It's so fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea. Like I caught up within
Speaker 1: the other day briefly.
Speaker 2: We've been friends for a long time and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got to I'm like, what, Wow, that isn't so
Speaker 2: what is what does that feel like? Is that is
Speaker 2: that a good weight or not a weight at all?
Speaker 2: Or a bad weight, Like is that the level of
Speaker 2: I would feel with that level of expectation and pressure.
Speaker 2: Maybe not in a bad way, but where you know,
Speaker 2: you've got to lead these people, care for these people.
Speaker 1: I guess inspire these people a bit. What's that like
Speaker 1: to deal with?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look it's there.
Speaker 4: There's that sort of thing of you know, god, you know,
Speaker 4: don't fuck it up basically, but.
Speaker 2: You should use that in your campaign. I like, if
Speaker 2: you want to be real, you want to be grounded.
Speaker 1: Do you know that you don't know this? And bout story.
Speaker 1: I've written seven books. The first book was called stop Fucking.
Speaker 2: Around right Now. Everyone told me not to call it that.
Speaker 2: This was pre all the other fuck books. This was
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, and that has that one book has
Speaker 2: outsold all my other books.
Speaker 1: So I think you should.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe you need some slogans or some posters
Speaker 2: that say, don't fuck it up, Zoe Daniel, don't fuck
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: You know you'll get the Bogan vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I get school teachers ring in my office
Speaker 4: to tell me off.
Speaker 3: And I do like to be a good role model
Speaker 3: for the kids.
Speaker 4: So but I'll say this, the volunteers carry me I
Speaker 4: don't carry them right, Like, obviously I am there to
Speaker 4: try to energize them, and we have big events where
Speaker 4: I give like big speeches and really try to create
Speaker 4: that inspiration. But I'm inspired by what they're doing, like
Speaker 4: I take energy from them.
Speaker 3: It's a really two way thing.
Speaker 4: And at this point in the campaign, you know, three
Speaker 4: weeks out, less than three weeks out from the election,
Speaker 4: I feel great because I've got all these amazing people,
Speaker 4: you know, door knocking and doing everything that you can
Speaker 4: think of, riding bikes, walking dogs, with my T shirts
Speaker 4: on running.
Speaker 3: I had a crew of people who ran the.
Speaker 4: Entire boundary of the electric at thirty five kilometers as
Speaker 4: you know, to bring publicity to the campaign. Like they're
Speaker 4: just everywhere and they're so beautiful and positive and hopeful,
Speaker 4: and so that gives me energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I talk to people about, you know, what
Speaker 2: they want to do, be create, you know, we talk
Speaker 2: about goals and we talk about people's what, and then
Speaker 2: then I talk to them about what's your why, Like
Speaker 2: what's your driver, what's your compelling force, what's your reason?
Speaker 2: And maybe you touched on it before with your kids,
Speaker 2: but what's like seems to me, politics does not seem attractive,
Speaker 2: not that I'm a political mind, but fuck politics, Like,
Speaker 2: what's what's your why.
Speaker 4: To provide a better future so the kids or at
Speaker 4: least the same prosperity that we've had, you know, the
Speaker 4: failings of the political system in providing good housing policy,
Speaker 4: good climate policy, good tax policy. Like there's an infinite
Speaker 4: number of things that I could reel off where the
Speaker 4: major parties just throw the ball between them and never
Speaker 4: actually make any progress on these things.
Speaker 3: And I think independence can take more.
Speaker 4: Risks because at the end of the day, if I
Speaker 4: don't get re elected on one person, right, but I
Speaker 4: can go out harder on things for the kids.
Speaker 3: And you know, I do so much work in schools.
Speaker 5: Our kids are weighed down by so much pressure around
Speaker 5: how the climate looks, the fact that they can't buy
Speaker 5: a house, that the tax burdens, student debt, gambling, advertising,
Speaker 5: a million things, and someone's got to be in there
Speaker 5: standing up for them.
Speaker 3: You know, someone has to do it.
Speaker 4: And if there's one central reason to do it, it's
Speaker 4: that to try to only gives them a voice.
Speaker 3: But really fight for.
Speaker 4: Better policy settings that actually enable them to thrive and
Speaker 4: have the life that they deserve.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a million answers to this question, but
Speaker 2: what is something that the average punter like Tiff and
Speaker 2: I and I would think most of our listeners might
Speaker 2: not understand about being a politician, like.
Speaker 1: Where you go a bit in?
Speaker 2: Never thought of this, or you know, is there something
Speaker 2: that you go if people only knew. I'm sure there's
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's fifty things.
Speaker 4: But look, I think that there's there's two obvious things.
Speaker 4: And I'm not going to go, oh for politicians, but
Speaker 4: because everyone's like, oh politicians, they've just got those snouts
Speaker 4: in the trough and it's all really easy. I mean, basically,
Speaker 4: you go into politics, you work twenty four seven, you
Speaker 4: spend For me, I spend six months of the year
Speaker 4: away from home, five or six months away from home
Speaker 4: up in Canberra. And then when I'm out on the
Speaker 4: street sometimes people scream at.
Speaker 3: Me, and you know, it can feel hard. But the
Speaker 3: thing is that you balance that up.
Speaker 4: With the really satisfying elements of it. When you crack
Speaker 4: through on something that is important and you've been really
Speaker 4: pushing hard for it, and it makes a difference and
Speaker 4: you think that's the reason to be there, and you
Speaker 4: know the.
Speaker 3: Earlier things I said are the reason that a lot.
Speaker 4: Of people won't do it, but some people, some people
Speaker 4: have to do it. You know, you've got to get
Speaker 4: in there with the backbone and try and stand up
Speaker 4: for good decision making, because you know, you can't really
Speaker 4: complain if you're not going to participate in it. And
Speaker 4: luckily for me, with the sort of background that I have,
Speaker 4: I have the capacity to do that.
Speaker 2: So what's on the excessive to do list between now
Speaker 2: and the election? Like, is it's still as it may
Speaker 2: hem right up to the day. What's your focus for
Speaker 2: the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: Just being out in community as much as possible.
Speaker 4: So the big thing that I have and the other
Speaker 4: independents have, as we've already talked about, is the ground
Speaker 4: game with so many volunteers, and because I'm prosecuting the
Speaker 4: case for people to vote for me as an individual,
Speaker 4: not for a major party brand, the main thing that
Speaker 4: I have to do is get in front of as
Speaker 4: many people as possible and have the conversation before election day,
Speaker 4: and also for my volunteers to do that for me.
Speaker 4: If I can't be physically in front of one hundred
Speaker 4: plus thousand people who are voting.
Speaker 3: In this electorate.
Speaker 4: But it really is being out there having conversations, pushing
Speaker 4: the for doing politics differently, and it's all of that.
Speaker 4: It's leaf lining, it's door knocking, it's pop up officers.
Speaker 4: Got an event politics in the pub tonight, so all
Speaker 4: those sorts of things which will do right up until
Speaker 4: the last votescast.
Speaker 1: Well, it's been great talking to you.
Speaker 2: I know I could talk to you for a long time,
Speaker 2: but I know you don't have a long time because
Speaker 2: you're an incredibly busy woman. Hey, thanks for taking some
Speaker 2: time in your schedule and having probably what is for
Speaker 2: you a somewhat unconventional chat to somebody in the kind
Speaker 2: of in the media social media will call it.
Speaker 1: But hope things go great for you.
Speaker 2: And really nice to meet you, and thanks for being
Speaker 2: raw and real and honest.
Speaker 3: Thanks Craig. Thanks, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the rest of your day and good luck with
Speaker 1: a campaign.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.