In this interview, Mia Schlicht appeared on Steve Price Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on the size of the public service.
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.
Steve Price:
Rowan Dean coming up after me. Let’s get into our Friday night panel. Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs Mia Schlicht joins us, and Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand. Great to see you both.
I want to start with one of my favourite ex-people, not, former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. He couldn’t help himself, could he? He went up to Canberra, and they unveiled a portrait because he’s an ex-prime minister. They hang him in a gallery there.
I must say I quite like the artist, but I hate the painting. She didn’t have much to work with, to be honest. But he had a crack at the party he once led. What a surprise from the miserable ghost. Have a look.
Malcolm Turnbull:
There are a group of people that by now, I think, like essentially majority, who think the object of politics is to win the approval of a relatively narrow part of the, what you might call, the right wing media, Sky News, Sky After Dark and fellow travellers in social media and radio. And so they’re running on culture war issues, on reality denial, like it’s really sad.
Steve Price:
Joe, this from a bloke who knifed Tony Abbott. Abbott won 16 seats at the election that got him elected. Malcolm managed to lose all of them, bar one, hid in his house on the Harbour on election night, didn’t come out until about 2:00 in the morning. I know, because I was on TV commentating on the election, and he’s talking about narrow paths.
I mean, seriously, Malcolm, please, just shut up.
Joe Hildebrand:
Yeah, I think the Turnbull prime ministership was clearly one of the great what-ifs of Australian political history. As in, what if he’d actually done something? What if he’d actually come back with a new tax plan or a big bold reform?
It seemed to just be a sort of a handful of sort of words, instead of meaning in many ways. What was it? Continuity with change? It was even satirised by the popular political satire Veep.
So I think the problem for Malcolm is that he hasn’t been able to bend the Liberal Party to his will, nor was he able to show it that, electorally, his brand of moderate-centrist politics, which I’m much, much closer to myself, his analysis isn’t wrong, but he had an opportunity to show how that could win.
And unfortunately, he squibbed it, and, as is often the case with people who get brought down by themselves, they blame everybody, but themselves, for it.
Steve Price:
Mia, I think he’s partly to blame for the coalition becoming Labour-like. I mean, that’s what he turned the coalition into. And Tony Abbott had shown what a successful committed politician with clear policies could do in winning all those seats. Malcolm then tried to turn them into a lighter version of the Labour Party, which was him.
How he ever became a Liberal prime minister is completely beyond me. But should he wear some of the blame as to where the coalition is right now?
Mia Schlicht:
Yeah, absolutely. I think he needs to wear some of that blame. I mean, I actually thought this portrait was quite fitting because it was a lacklustre portrait for a lacklustre former prime minister. I thought the only way we could improve it was perhaps by painting the background a nice teal colour. I think that probably would’ve been a bit more fitting.
But I’m glad you brought up Tony Abbott because I think it shows a perfect example of you’ve got two sets of former prime ministers. You’ve got one former prime minister in Tony Abbott, who has spent his time committed to writing a proud history of Australia so that a legacy is left for Australians to celebrate this country, and that’s what he’s dedicated his time to.
And then you’ve got a former prime minister in Malcolm Turnbull who has spent the whole time either talking about himself, he wrote a book about himself, or he runs around disparaging the party or disparaging the country. It’s night-and-day, and it just presents, plain as day, who this man is.
Steve Price:
Yeah, I’ve got to say of the recent prime ministers, I’d have to say that Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard are the ones that have shown how you should be an ex-prime minister, rather than people like Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.
This working-from-home debate may or, I mean, I’m very interested in this. I mean, the public service apparently now less than two-thirds turn up to the office five days a week, which is quite extraordinary.
How can the government continue to justify hiring hundreds and hundreds and hundreds more bureaucrats and public servants, and not even tell them that they need to go back to the office?
Mia Schlicht:
Well, they can’t justify it. They can’t justify it all.
The ballooning public service is an issue that absolutely needs to be addressed. I thought it was really unfortunate in the federal election campaign that the Liberals backed down from the argument and didn’t prosecute the case because it’s an issue that certainly does need to be addressed. It is simply out of control.
To me, these numbers actually made a lot more sense because we’ve got mainstream Australians all the time who are running around complaining about valid issues, such as the out-of-control migration intake at the moment, because the way it affects their commute to work, the way it affects social infrastructure, the way it affects transport. And we’ve got those in government and the public service who seem to not be understanding it.
Well, now I understand why they don’t get it, because they’re all at home. They’re not out there living in the real world. So, of course, they can’t relate to the issues that mainstream Australians are trying to get them to understand because they live in these nice little bubbles where they’re sitting at home doing Zoom meetings in their pyjamas. But I do wonder just how many welcome-to-countries they’re all still performing on their Zoom meetings in the morning.
Steve Price:
Joe, as I tripped over another homeless person this morning and had to avoid a drug-crazed person with a machete wandering down Chapel Street, I was very shocked to read that apparently, Victoria has surged this spring, gone straight past New South Wales and Chapel Street.
Would you believe it is proving a big draw card? A, I don’t know who did the survey, and, B, I don’t know who they asked, Joe, because Chapel Street is a mere shadow of what it used to be, and I’m not kidding. I live two blocks off it when I live in Melbourne. If you go there after dark, you take your life into your own hands. It’s a dangerous place.
Joe Hildebrand:
Yeah, it’s really surprising, and I can’t quite name it. Maybe it’s people sort of believing the spin that Melbourne puts on itself that is the capital of cool still, as opposed to the capital of crime. And they’re rocking up, and they see what they see, and then they just hightail it out of there, but you’ve sort of managed to tick the box.
Or maybe it’s like grunge tourism. Maybe it’s, “Come to Melbourne, our famous graffiti alleys. It used to be ironic, but now there’s actually real criminals there. Go and have a look.”
It is baffling, but I’m quite happy here in Sydney. Thank you, Pricey.
Steve Price:
Well, Mia, you live here. I mean you will have experienced Chapel Street. It used to be fantastic. It is now a dangerous place.
I mean, I’m not making this up. I see it on a daily basis. My local Liquorland shop got their door locked. The poor girl who works in the 7-Eleven on the corner of High Street and Chapel Street, she locks the door. I have to knock on it to go in there and buy the paper.
Mia Schlicht:
No, you’re certainly not making it up. I mean, just ask how many residents who are paying for private security to protect their homes and to protect their businesses. I mean, crime in that area is out of control.
But I did have to kind of laugh at this article because there’s a section in it that says tourism around Chapel Street is going so well because spending has increased in the area. Something about spending in cafes has gone up 17% or something like that.
I’m thinking, well, no wonder. Because five years ago, I could buy a cup of coffee for $3, and now I’m spending $7. And so no wonder spending’s gone up.
I’m not sure if that’s any indication that more people are enjoying their times in Chapel Street, or just prices are out of control. Cost of living is out of control. Crime is out of control. It’s terrible.
Steve Price:
Yeah, it is out of control. And we run out of time, sadly, because I wanted to ask Joe about the famous El Jannah Garlic Sauce because the chicken shop has actually been sold to the United States. It is the best chicken in Sydney, and then we’ve now got one in Melbourne.
Thank you both for joining us. Always appreciated.
This transcript with Mia Schlicht on Steve Price Sky News Australia from 28 November 2025 has been edited for clarity.
