HOST: It’s an interesting thing because we have all this stuff happening elsewhere in the world, and obviously, you know, that’s your job to deal with all that and look at that – at least be aware of it.
But in Australia we’ve got a federal election happening and we’ve got domestic politics which of late – and I think really ramped up in the pandemic – is we’ve seen just such an increase in the culture wars, you know what I mean?
It distracts from a lot of things but we have: Trans rights, Aboriginal flags, woke schools, yada yada yada, all that stuff.
Is this a new thing or as someone who’s been (the) longest serving cabinet minister, female cabinet minister, has this always been around?
WONG: I think it’s just Peter Dutton doing what John Howard did, is you try and pick a fight in order to define yourself and so that people don’t ask you what you’re really gonna do. Frankly, that’s it. That’s just end of story.
HOST: Throwing dead cats on the table.
WONG: You remember the fight over the apology or the black armband view of history or whatever, the fight over school curriculum? I think we all know he wants to talk about that because he wants to define himself on those grounds because he doesn’t want to talk about cuts to Medicare, doesn’t want to talk about $600 billion of nuclear reactors, all of that kind of stuff.
But can I go back to the world … I mean, it’s not just me dealing with this, I mean, the government and Albo, he’s had to be a prime minister in a time where we’ve got to navigate a pretty different world.
The thing that is, and he’s a mate of mine… There are many things that I think are really great about him, doesn’t forget where he came from, but he’s also really disciplined and really firm about the direction he wants to take… He’s good to work with.
HOST: That’s the funny thing, right, with the referendum: is this an example of that? You know, the referendum looked like it was going to fail, everyone who was supporting it had hope, but back to the culture wars, that’s what it turned into.
The opponents turned it into that. Albo had the chance to, to pull the pin on that…early days before we’d even seen… all the confusion set in, ‘if you don’t know, vote no’. But is that what you’re saying there, he said he was going to do it?
WONG: Yeah, he’s not a pull the pin kind of guy.
HOST: So he’s gonna wear it – wear the bark getting taken off him by his opponents.
WONG: He thought it was the right thing to do and a lot of the First Nations leaders wanted the opportunity. I think we’ll look back on it in 10 years’ time, and it’ll be a bit like marriage equality, don’t you reckon?
Like I always used to say marriage equality, which took us such a bloody fight to get that done, and I thought all this fuss, it’ll become something, it’ll be like, people go, do we have an argument about that?
…Like kids today, or any, even adults today, barely kind of clock that it used to be an issue.
Remember how big an issue that was in cultural wars?
HOST: Yes, I remember (Alan) Joyce getting hit with a pie.
WONG: Blimey. It’s just endless.
Source: Betoota Talks podcast
