In this interview, Mia Schlicht appeared on The Bolt Report Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on political insiders.
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.
Andrew Bolt:
Joining me is Sky News host Danica De Giorgio, and Mia Schlicht of the Institute of Public Affairs. Mia, what’s the message here? Liberals sack public servants, bad, Labour sacks public servants, good?
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah. Look, Labour doesn’t play fair. We know this. When they’re prosecuting a policy or an argument or a campaign, it’s not grounded in principle or in value. It’s about winning. At the end of the day, Labour is a campaign machine. During the time of the federal election, it suited them to spin this narrative that the Liberal party was going to cut all these public service jobs, and that was going to lead to disastrous outcomes for so many Australians. Now that they’re in a position where they’ve run the economy into the ground, and they’ve basically run out of all money and they’re looking to pinch pennies wherever they can, it’s now suiting their position to start talking about public service cuts.
The problem is, at the time, the Liberal party didn’t prosecute the argument. They ran away from it. I mean, to call this austerity cuts, are we living in la-la land? I mean, come on. To put the problem in context, in the last financial year, the public service has grown by 3.26%. Now, that is double the amount the Australian population grew in that same time. The growth to the public service is a huge problem. It’s hurting all Australians, and I think it’s a shame that we’re not taking this problem more seriously.
Andrew Bolt:
You could fill a reasonable-sized country centre with the number of public servants hired by this government in three years, Danica, but what do you make of this austerity drive?
Danica De Giorgio:
It really is a comedy skit show. You know what I most vividly remember from the last election that we had this year, Andrew, was Peter Dutton put forward a plan for DOGE-style cuts. I think it was a very sensible type of plan, given that the public service has become a behemoth. What did Labour and Anthony Albanese do? They painted him as Donald Trump 2.0. “Look out if you work for the public service. Donald Trump 2.0, aka Peter Dutton, is coming after you.” Clearly it was successful. I do agree with Mia that the coalition did not prosecute this properly. Peter Dutton has gone, and now, six months later, Labor’s done a copy-and-paste effort but under the guise of a positive austerity drive.
I mean, you just can’t make this stuff up. The reason why is it has had no choice, because this government has run the economy into the ground. It has gone flat. Government spending now makes up 27% of GDP, 27%, and now Labor’s got to hand down a mid-year budget review next month in December, and they’re probably thinking, “Gee, it doesn’t look too good at all.” The public service is a monster. There’s more than 1 million across the country. That’s both federally, state and local.
The problem is, Andrew, is that Labour federally have spent money on all sorts of bizarre things, not only inflating departments, but they’re also doing cultural drives, that they’ve even put a survey out suggesting that now there’s been a huge increase in the amount of people who identify as gender X in the public service as opposed to male and female. I mean, that is where their priorities are. Government spending is at record levels. Inflation’s gone up because of it. The public sector is completely inflated. It means that everyday Aussies are reliant on the government, and we’re all paying the price.
Andrew Bolt:
I don’t want to get too philosophical, Mia, on this show, but I’m going to give it a burl. The prime minister made a very telling admission, and by accident really. He was a bit surprised, and only cottoned on when the opposition started laughing. It caused a ruckus today. When he was responding to a question about his lack of action on gaming ads, here he is.
Anthony Albanese:
I thank the member for her question to me as Prime Minister, but I’m also leader of the Australian Labour Party. We are a political party, not a bunch of individuals, and what we do … and what we do … and what we do is we make decisions.
Andrew Bolt:
Mia, your response to that admission that Labour is not the party for individuals. You were just looking at members of a tribe there, all going, “Baa.”
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah. Look, this admission didn’t really shock me at all. We all know that the Labour Party is not the party for individuals. It’s well known that you either toe the party line or you get kicked out. In that way, the admission did not shock me at all. Look, the Labour Party, for a long time, it has represented, it has been the political wing for the trade union movement. It is there to represent sectional interests, as plain and simple as that. Now, as Labour involvement in the private sector has diminished, they have run around trying to represent any left-wing sectional interests that they can gather together, and that’s what they’re there to do. They’re not there to represent the interests of individuals.
Andrew Bolt:
Honestly, Danica, when I hear that, I’m reminded back in the day when a couple of Labour ministers … I’m talking previous governments, of course … but talk to me about how frustrated they were by Labor’s global warming policies even then, even then. I wonder, when I hear things like that, how many are quietly seething at what this party’s doing, but don’t dare speak out against this tribal culture.
Danica De Giorgio:
Well, no. I mean, they probably are sitting back at home going, “Goodness me, what’s happened?” When I listened to that quote, Andrew, well, I feel like it’s open to interpretation. I interpreted it in two ways. One, it was all as if to say, “We are the collective. We are the socialist movement.” I mean, I just spoke about there being a culture of dependency in this country right now on Labour. That is one example.
Then the other example, I thought, the exact quote was, “We are a political party and not a bunch of individuals.” Well, when I think of individuals in the Labour Party, what a fantastic week to be talking about individuals. I mean, Chris Bowen, number-one individual in the Labour Party, off on a vanity trip, becoming Australia’s first part-time energy minister on a fly-in fly-out basis. I think there are a lot of individuals right now within that party, I would say, so open to interpretation.
Andrew Bolt:
Well, there is that, but back to the business of the day, Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt just yesterday. Now, the opposition has joined Labour and the Greens in attacking it and in attacking Barnaby Joyce, who is just about to announce he is joining Hanson’s One Nation Party. Obviously, the coalition is thinking or hoping that Hanson went so far that this is the time her balloon pops, and they must help pop it. How do you read it? Has Hanson’s stunt hurt One Nation, has it helped it, or neither?
Mia Schlicht:
Well, look. I think it’ll be the same time as when she ran this stunt last time. There’ll be a very vocal group who is in support of the stunt, and there’ll be a very vocal group who is against the stunt. Ultimately, whether this ends up helping or hurting Pauline Hanson I think will depend on how she continues on with the argument, how she prosecutes it. Because I do think she has a very valid point to make here, and that’s, regardless of whether you agree with banning the burqa or not, if we put that to one side, the fact is she is a senator and she has the right to table this motion, and she has the right to debate the issue and make her argument.
She was not allowed to make the argument, and I think there are so many mainstream Australians out there right now who are sick and tired of not being able to make their argument, whether that’s to do with climate change, whether that’s to do with immigration or social cohesion. We have an extremely arrogant government who thinks it is okay to shut down debate when it is an issue that they don’t feel good about. That is where I think Pauline Hanson might gain some support here amongst mainstream Australians who are tired of being shut down.
Andrew Bolt:
To you, Danica, so kicking her out, I get people upset with the gesture of wearing the burqa, right? There’ll be people quite upset about it. Kicking out an elected MP or senator for a week, stifling her ability to represent the state that she was elected to serve, strikes me as a little over the top.
Danica De Giorgio:
Of course it is. Even though she’s been censured, it’s not going to get rid of this topic. People are still going to talk about it. I mean, that is the topic of the day. You go out for lunch, people are talking about it. You’ve got family and friends talking about it. Well done to the left and the right of politics. It’s not going to go anywhere.
Look, I actually think this has helped her cause greatly, to be honest. Pauline Hanson is one of only a very few number of politicians who are willing to say and do what she’s thinking, and without fear or favour. I mean, she puts herself out there and risks being called a racist. She doesn’t care, because she’s passionate about the topic. She’s a politician. She was elected to do so, and I say good on her.
I mean, in the end, more than 20 countries, Andrew, around the world have banned the burqa. A lot of them are Muslim nations. She’s right to put forward this debate in this country. You don’t have to agree with it. She tried to put it forward in the Senate. It was shut down. Was it a stunt on her part? Yes, it was, but it’s not like we haven’t seen stunts recently in the Senate. Look at Mehreen Faruqi wearing a keffiyeh, Sarah Hanson-Young bringing a dead fish into Parliament.
It also comes at a time where there are a lot of issues that are red hot that she’s talking about. Look at migration, for example. I mean, there have been some people brought into this country whose values do not align with a Western democracy. We are a Western democracy. We are a democratic country. We have the right to have these debates. I think that what happened in the Senate by censuring her is appalling. It’s not going to go anywhere. In fact, I think this will just empower her more.
Andrew Bolt:
Well, if they’d just let her speak for five minutes, it’ll all be over. I doubt anyone would’ve even reported it. Danica De Giorgio and Mia Schlicht, thank you very much to you both.
This transcript with Mia Schlicht talking on The Bolt Report Sky News Australia from 25 November 2025 has been edited for clarity.
