You cannot accuse her of cowardice — NSW Housing and Homelessness Minister Rose Jackson is returning to Q+A for the first time since her appearance in the program’s first season back in 2008.
In that inaugural run of episodes, Jackson, then a rising star in Young Labor, was asked by an audience member who, giving off profound “this is more of a comment than a question” vibes, referenced voters who “substituted a shopping-trip mentality in which people capriciously change their votes in salivating Pavlovian responses to policy tweaking…”.
Prefacing that she was “not necessarily the right person to answer this question”, Jackson argued: “I sort of passionately believe, um, that young people have an important contribution to make to politics — and that politics can be so much more than a shopping-trip or a pavlova-buying exercise…”
Yep, having been presented with something of a word salad, Jackson clearly had food on the brain, and appeared to mistake a reference to Ivan Pavlov experiments in conditioning with the Antipodes’ most contentious desert. Footage of the moment appears to have been scrubbed from the internet, but part of our job here in the Crikey bunker is to have a painfully long memory — a burden we share with Gerard Henderson, whose day we hope to have slightly spoiled by recalling this episode before he can.
Regardless, Jackson’s subsequent career as a councillor and now a state minister — uttering what we’re pretty sure is the first “sashay away” recorded by Hansard in Australian history along the way — is a sign that we may all yet be redeemed. Here’s a few other former Q+A guests who might follow her example.
Teena McQueen
It’s a near-unbreakable rule of public speaking — if people start laughing while you talk and you’re forced to ask “what’s funny?”, it’s probably not going well. And this is perhaps where Jackson went wrong: she limited her troubles to a single, easily picked-up gaffe. The approach of then-Liberal Party vice-president Teena McQueen, during her March 2019 appearance on the program, was to be so haphazard, so incomprehensibly tone deaf, that it’s hard to know where to start.
Accusing then Greens leader Richard Di Natale of unspecified “hate speech” that was worse than dumped One Nation senator Fraser Anning apportioning blame for the Christchurch mosque massacre to its victims? Defending Donald Trump’s character based on a brief conversation some 13 years earlier? We’d probably go with McQueen’s inability, less than a fortnight after an Australian murdered more than 50 people in New Zealand, to observe anything of then NZ PM Jacinda Ardern other than to allege she was “copying” John Howard’s gun control reforms.
John Howard
Speaking of Howard, we wonder if his greatest source of pride in public is his brave, principled stance on gun control in his first term? Or is it the 2010 Q+A appearance in which audience member Peter Gray tossed his shoes at the former PM (necessitating a gorgeous Zapruder-style analysis in the Fairfax papers the next day)?
After all, Howard had been George W. Bush’s faithful ally, his man of steel, throughout the horrors of the Iraq War. Yet he perhaps never so fully emulated his partner-in-(war)crime as when dodging footwear.
John Madigan
Alas the late Victorian senator will not be able to add to his appearances on the bad show, having passed away in 2020. Madigan could be remembered for many things — he was the last person to be federally elected as a Democratic Labour Party candidate (as opposed to joining them after you’ve been kicked out by another party), and put forward the kind draconian social policy and protectionist economics that you might expect. But really, the first thing most people will think of is his immortal observation on a 2015 episode of Q+A that “Submarines are the spaceships of the ocean“.
Simon Sheikh
The real lesson from the former GetUp! director’s appearance, during which he passed out, is a very simple one, applicable to both in and out of the Q+A studio: make sure you’re getting enough rest and water and don’t push yourself too hard if you’re getting over an illness.
What other memorable Q+A moments have we missed? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.