In this interview Mia Schlicht appeared on The Media Show – Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on the views of mainstream Australians towards the ABC.
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.
Jack Houghton:
But before we get into all of that, spare a thought for our Victorian friends. Because if you publish a story that their snivelling and weak premier, Jacinta Allan, dislikes, she will attack you with vitriol.
Now, we’ve long known that free speech means very little to all authoritarians who are running Victoria, but yesterday’s meltdown by Allan is a new low. The Australian revealed that children as young as five were effectively vulnerable to the indoctrination of transgender ideologies as part of the Victorian government’s school curriculum.
Now, it was legitimate reporting and should make even the most progressive of parents uncomfortable. But of course, when Allan was probed at a public press conference, she shuffled uncomfortably before unleashing a venomous retort targeting the reporting.
Jacinta Allan:
It’s disgraceful nonsense, like seriously. This sort of ongoing attack on a programme that is making a difference in kids’ lives just should be stopped. It should be stopped.
It’s disgraceful reporting. It’s hurtful. When you consider the incidence that transgender kids are 15 times more likely to kill themselves, we should be supporting them. The Australian needs to stop this ongoing campaign because it’s hurtful and harmful.
Jack Houghton:
Disagree with Allan, and not only are you disgraceful, but you are interfering with efforts to prevent child suicides. It is a deceptive and emotionally manipulative slur that one might expect from the more cognitively diminished left-wing activists, but to hear it from the lips of the state’s most powerful woman is frankly despicable.
Knowledge is not harmful, nor is it harmful to test policies and programmes for evidence that they actually achieve what is being advertised. This push to teach five-year-olds slogans and phrases used in the transgender community is absurd. But even worse is the idea that we can’t have the debate.
Now, globally, this movement is falling apart partly because of the heavy-handed, the arrogant, and the overly defensive culture around how these clinics and programmes deal with children. It is why the Tavistock Clinic was shut down in the UK, and the independent CAS review published by the National Health Service raised concerns about gender-affirming policies.
But here in Australia, even talking about the issue, even quoting a concerned mother, well, that of course will incur the wrath of a powerful and toxic politician.
Well, joining me on the panel this week is research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, Mia Schlick, and Sky News contributor James Bolt here on the desk. We’ve obviously spoken about this at length behind the scenes, this spray by Allan. What did you make of it?
James Bolt:
I think this is a deliberate distortion of the role of the media, and the media has a really important role to play in society. I’m not saying that we’re ambulance drivers or police officers, but we do have a role, and that is the interrogation of big issues and of the government.
Our role is not to report what the government is doing and without questioning and to support this government. It’s to support the people. The people deserve to know what’s going on.
So when Rachel Baxendale does that reporting for The Australian and finds out what’s going on in schools, that isn’t to diminish the seriousness of the issue. It’s not to hurt children, it is not to even what that programme is trying to do. It is to make sure the public is well-informed about what is going on so that we can provide the government with pressure to defend what they’re doing and to make statements about why they’re doing it.
So for Jacinta Allan to say that Rachel Baxendale is hurting the effort, just hurting the idea that we want to prevent child suicides, is so disgraceful. We need proper debate because that’s going to get the best solution on an issue, not the idea that the debate in any way stops the right things being done.
Jack Houghton:
Ironically, it’s a very binary view of the issue, isn’t it?
James Bolt:
Yes.
Jack Houghton:
There’s these two extremes. Either you’re with us, or you’re against us, and you’re leading to the harm of suicide.
Mia, welcome back to the show. The Australian, they hit back at some of these absurd comments, and Rachel Baxendale actually got into this whole figure of whether kids actually are 15 times more likely to commit suicide if they are identifying as transgender. That appears to lack all evidence.
So not only is this spray vitriolic, it’s targeted, it’s aggressive, it’s dismissive of legitimate reporting. She’s spreading misinformation. She’s got no idea what she’s talking about. What do you make of this situation?
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah, I think you’re exactly right with this one. I mean, when the premier’s lashing out like this to the media, you know she’s in pretty big trouble. And to use words like “hurtful” to talk about children killing themselves, that kind of emotive language, to me, that was completely juvenile. It was so juvenile.
But here, I think we can see she’s not doing well. She’s had a bad start to her premiership. She’s looking for some kind of rebrand. And for me, it looks like she’s trying to take a play straight out of Dan Andrews’ playbook, because I mean, he was the master of this. You would see him gaslight journalists, demean journalists, call them dishonest, and he would basically just outlast them until he could deflect off the issue.
And I think Premier Jacinta Allan is looking to do the exact same thing here. She just hasn’t done it very well.
Jack Houghton:
Yeah, I agree. And she might not like it, but it is good fun making fun of these people. So we’ll keep that up.
Anyway, moving on, because sticking to the theme of belligerent Labour politicians acting like tin-pot dictators, I can’t think of a better time than to introduce our prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
Anthony Albanese:
Hamas do not want a two-state solution. They say that the alleged statement from the person yesterday, as someone who’s been in prison in Israel since October 2023 and has no means of communication, what that should be as a warning to the media of being very careful about the fact that Hamas will engage in propaganda.
Jack Houghton:
Ah, propaganda, hey? It is always curious when the most powerful politician does this, one whose party spreads misinformation all over social media, every election, who lies, who breaks promises, who brushes off criticism with dismissive and angry retorts to journalists.
It is so funny to me when these people who are supposed to serve you start lecturing us all about propaganda. So what is he on about now, and which journalists has he publicly accused of spreading terror propaganda?
Channel 9 Presenter:
A senior official of the terrorist group that triggered the Gaza conflict has welcomed the Prime Minister’s decision to recognise Palestine. The opposition has leapt on the endorsement by Hamas as proof that Anthony Albanese has acted prematurely.
When the Prime Minister announced his historic move to recognise Palestinian statehood, he made this declaration.
Anthony Albanese:
Hamas don’t support two states. Hamas support one state, in their words, “from the river to the sea.”
Channel 9 Presenter:
Anthony Albanese arguing that by joining the French and Brits in the move, the terror outfit would be isolated. Think again. A Hamas co-founder welcoming the move. Sheikh Hassan Yousef telling nine newspapers the PM’s position reflects political courage and a commitment to the values of justice.
Jack Houghton:
Being praised by Hamas for courage probably doesn’t poll very well. The story was broken by The Sydney Morning Herald’s Matthew Knott, who was the reporter to obtain the quotes.
And the ABC obtained a similar statement from a Hamas spokesperson, which also backed in the decision. But another Hamas figure, the Sim Naim, released a different statement to the AFR suggesting that it was impossible for The Sydney Morning Herald to get that quote, as the terrorist had been locked up.
The SMH later clarified that it was the office of the terrorist which supplied the quote, kind of like how Albanese’s office sends out quotes to be attributed to him all of the time. And do we really think that Albo is sitting there tweeting photos like this from Wednesday where he shoved his face full of a pie, perhaps a reward for single-handedly fixing the Middle East, but I imagine it was actually his large team of tax-pay funded staff who workshopped this charming message to Australians, “Nothing better than a pie stop on a busy day.” He’s so quaint and reliable, isn’t he? But I do digress.
We have no way of knowing which one of these evil terrorists are telling the truth, but Albanese chose to side with the terror quote, which suited him best. There were three quotes attributed to terrorists floating around, but he backed the one which allowed him to dismiss critical media coverage as propaganda.
And in doing so by picking a side, he was the one to then validate terrorist propaganda. He allowed Hamas propaganda to cast doubt over the reporting of an Australian journalist. James, really complex story, and I think a lot of journalists miss the nuance and they didn’t quite realise. I mean, I hope that they missed it. I hope it wasn’t just this intentional disregard for what happened, but what do you make of him selecting which quote he wants, selectively choosing what statements from Hamas are legitimate? What are propa… This person is validating one and disregarding others.
James Bolt:
Yeah, it’s this level of, to quote Hamas, to prove that you aren’t referencing Hamas.
Jack Houghton:
And you can’t quote Hamas.
James Bolt:
Yeah to, say, “Hey, Hamas have said you can’t quote Hamas. So I’m quoting Hamas to say you can’t quote Hamas.” That’s that level of 4D chess, big brain thinking that gets you on top.
Jack Houghton:
And you’ve got these journalists nodding along saying, “Oh yeah, that’s legitimate.”
James Bolt:
The thing to me is that Albanese has really backed himself into a corner here because when you say, “I want to recognise Palestine, oh, but the proviso is Hamas can no longer play a part in the government,” no clear-minded person is going to go, “Oh, that’s really damaging to Hamas. He’s clearly taken the side of Israel.”
Of course, Hamas want Palestine to be recognised. Of course, this is something that Hamas are going to benefit from.
Jack Houghton:
It’s a conflation to [inaudible 00:10:26].
James Bolt:
It’s a conflation.
Jack Houghton:
Penny Wong was also asked whether they would still recognise if Hamas was in control, and she said yes.
James Bolt:
But the thing is, so if Hamas stands and recognise it, Albanese, an honest position would’ve been, “Look, I am so disgusted by what I’m seeing in Gaza. I am so over this war that I will take the hit of whatever Hamas’s recognition of this is going to be to say that I will support a two-state solution and I just want to see peace.”
But instead to say, “Actually, you know what I’ve done is big brain thinking again, I’m actually positioning Hamas in a corner where they’re going to be so disgusted that I’m actually recognising the State of Palestine.” You can’t defend that.
So what you end up doing is having these, “Well, Hamas said this. Hamas said that. Actually my preferred Hamas spokesperson said this.” And suddenly we’re just in absolute crazy town in the media debate around this.
Jack Houghton:
Couldn’t agree more. Mia, your thoughts?
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah, I have to agree there with James. I mean, this has been a dream of Albanese and Penny Wong since their uni days. There is no doubt at some stage that they were going to try and put this proposal forward.
But I mean, to all of a sudden be so concerned with propaganda coming out of Hamas, I mean, what was going to fuel that propaganda more than legitimising their cause? If Albanese was so concerned about giving them fuel for their fire, how would he think that saying something like this wasn’t just going to hand them a free kick on this one?
Jack Houghton:
Yeah, completely agree, and I hope that Albo never ever quotes Hamas health ministry data on the death count, because obviously you can’t trust them.
Anyway, before we move on, I want to show you how the ABC tackled this whole terror prime minister scandal. They tracked him down to the ECRA in Brisbane, my beloved hometown, and I hear that these taxpayer-funded journalists say that they hold power to account all the time.
So this is going to be good. Let’s have a listen.
Crowd:
What do you reckon? How is it?
Anthony Albanese:
It’s very hard to talk at this point in time. You’ve waited until I had the strawberry before you asked the question. It is awesome.
Crowd:
Well, you’ve heard it from the Prime Minister here first. Strawberry sundaes, are they the highlight?
Anthony Albanese:
Come on, put it in your gob now.
Journalist:
I am.
Anthony Albanese:
I had to for the interview.
Crowd:
Go on.
Anthony Albanese:
Go on. There you go. Now, how are the strawberry sundaes?
Journalist:
Oh, you’ve done it to me too.
Anthony Albanese:
Mia, how do you rate that hard-hitting journalism?
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah, that’s some real getting to the bottom of all the truth in that one, isn’t it? I mean, this is a bit like the pie shot that Albany’s team put up there. It’s this attempt to kind of humanise Albanese. They’ve got him with a pie. This is friendly Albo. There he is bantering along with the journalists, “Oh, this is jolly, silly, goofy Albo,” and they’ll do it.
“Here’s Albo with Taylor Swift.” And they do it over and over and over and again in some attempt to try and humanise this man. But I mean, we all know the most authentic Albo was him standing on the Great Wall of China cosplaying as Gough Whitlam.
Jack Houghton:
That’s such a good point. I mean, look, the irony of this as well, James, is that this is actually a form of propaganda. It’s like this soft propaganda, but it is an actual legitimate form of propaganda when you’re running around there, as Mia says, humanising him, making him seem quaint.
He’s the everyman. He’s not a politician. He’s just your average Joe. It’s the Albo vernacular as well. What do you make of all this?
James Bolt:
You’re making a lot of good points, but I’m struggling to just keep track of the conversation because I think, I can’t be right on this one, I think I just said Albanese say to a female reporter, “Put that in your gob.”
Look, what about ism is the lowest form of political argument. I hate it, but could you imagine if Scott Morrison said that? How viral would that have been as just a moment of absolute cringe.
Jack Houghton:
Yeah, the ABC loves him.
James Bolt:
That’s crazy.
Jack Houghton:
Yeah, he’ll get away with all of it. But it looks like a great time though to introduce our Kim Williams segment and he is the ABC chair and he loves the ABC now, but we found a rather awkward interview from Williams 13 years ago when he was running news call.
Kim Williams:
The ABC is obviously a large employer of journalists and produces a lot of journalism. Breaks remarkably few stories relative to the amount of money that’s invested in it, if I’m truthful and accurate and objective in assessing it, which is something I think the ABC is often not good at. The ABC has a remarkable appetite for self-congratulation in the most extravagant way. We break news and we break thousands of stories each and every year. The ABC breaks dozens.
Jack Houghton:
Mia, this is going to be an awkward one for Kim Williams. He’s running the ABC. He loves it now, but obviously those old quotes I think are probably a reflection of his true opinion of the organisation that we pay $1.2,000,000,000 for.
They produce the things like the epist up on Instagram, and as he says, they might break dozens of stories a year.
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah. Listen, I don’t think much has changed since that interview took place. I mean, the ABC has run itself into the ground. It no longer represents the views of mainstream Australians; that is well-known. Unless you hold an opinion of an inner-city elite, the ABC does not represent you, and we’ve seen that with many of their flagship programmes going under, such as Q&A, just because of how biassed these programmes are.
But to have a look at how much they’re struggling, I mean, the IPA, we conducted an FOI about a year ago, and we looked at how much they were spending on self-promotion. And it was around $20,000,000 on advertising and market research. This is not an organisation that’s doing well.
Jack Houghton:
Yeah, they’ve got no idea on the value of the dollar from my point of view. James, final word.
James Bolt:
Yeah, they’re not breaking stories, but they seem to be breaking people. I can’t believe that’s the same Kim Williams that we now see saying that Joe Rogan is this awful person that we can’t be listening to. It’s like an invasion of the body snatchers thing. We see Kim Williams now, we’re like, “Ah, it looks like him. It sounds like him. It’s got all the mannerisms, but that is just not the same person.”
Jack Houghton:
I’m sorry, you don’t have any integrity if you’re making that big a u-turn and you’re not explaining.
James Bolt:
Absolutely.
Jack Houghton:
It’s an integrity issue. James, Mia, thank you so much for joining me today.
This transcript of Mia Schlicht appeared on The Media Show – Sky News Australia from 15 August 2025 has been edited for clarity.
