This is question time, not sledge time.
Order.
Order.
Sit down.
Prime Minister, resume your seat.
Members will cease interjecting.
I'm issuing a general warning.
There's no point in me repeating myself over and over again.
I have asked for silence.
I've asked for silence.
It applies to you.
Order.
Alrighty kids, before we dive into Bryce's chat with the marvellous Annabelle Crabb, here's your chance to hear your name on TV.
For our next Squiz Kids Q&A, we've roped in the Speaker of the House, Milton Dick.
He's the bloke you see on the TV news at night, sitting in the big chair in the middle of all those shouty politicians in Canberra during question time.
He's kind of like the umpire at a tennis match or the ref at a footy game, doing his level best to make sure everyone in federal parliament plays by the rules.
He's all about disagreement and debate and the exchange of ideas, but only if it's done in a respectful way.
And this is where he needs your help.
He's looking for new things to say to our federal politicians to keep them in line.
And he reckons there's no one better than Aussie kids to help him out.
Send in your suggestions of what Milton should say to our politicians when things get heated in the House of Reps.
He's going to choose the best ones and read them out in an upcoming session of federal parliament.
And read out your name too.
It might be something your parents say to stop you fighting with your siblings, or something your teacher says to turn the classroom from chaos to calm.
Send your suggestions via email to squizkids at thesquizcomau and stay listening at the end of the episode for our full Speaker of the House mash-up.
Now, for the esteemed author of There's a Prawn in Parliament House, Annabelle Crabb.
Squiz Kids acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands on which we podcast the Turrbal and Gadigal people.
Squiz Kids!
It's your daily news fix.
Fun, free, fresh.
Hello, Bryce Corbett here and welcome to this very special Squiz Kids Spotlight, the podcast where we throw the spotlight on someone super cool and have a Squiz Kids chat with them.
And today's spotlight is being shone on one of Australia's smartest people.
Political reporter, cookbook writer, TV star, podcast supremo, and now kids author.
Is there anything she cannot do?
The incredible Annabelle Crabb.
Welcome to Squiz Kids.
I have never had a greater honour.
I have never been cool, but I feel like now I am.
I've arrived.
Thank you so much for having me.
I love your podcast and I'm thrilled to be here.
Thank you, Annabelle.
We love your work too.
Now, you're aware of many hats.
And each one, if I may say, is a feather and sequin spectacular that would make fancy Nancy proud.
Also, I have a really large head and a lot of hair.
Right, so lots of hats required.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hats are part of the gig.
Your most recent hat, though, is as a kid's author.
Yeah.
With the publication this week of a very excellent new book called There's a Prawn in Parliament House.
Tell us what it's about.
I started writing this book no kidding about eight years ago because my eldest daughter was going for a visit to Canberra to visit Parliament House.
And there wasn't really a book to read.
And I thought I will write a fun book because I've spent a lot of time kind of trailing around Parliament House being a political reporter, watching politicians, watching people who come to try and influence politicians.
And it's such a fascinating place and such an important place.
Yeah.
And I thought let's share some of the stories and also really have a chat about what role this building plays in our lives.
So, tappity, tappity, tap.
I started writing.
I started writing.
And, look, I'm normally pretty good with deadlines, but it took me –
Eight years to write it.
And during the COVID lockdowns, I did something very stupid, which is I accidentally forgot to save it properly and I lost about six chapters of it because yes, I know.
So that daughter is now 18.
And as she says to me, Mum.
You would be unemployable if you were trying to find a job now.
You're bad at tech.
But I am good at people and politics.
Absolutely.
And you're also good at detective work, because you've found what is quite possibly the only prawn in Parliament House.
Who is that?
Okay.
So.
Parliament House is a beautifully designed building.
It was kind of excavated out of a hill and it's got about four kilometres of underground secret tunnels that have little cars that zip around and storerooms.
It's got its own kitchens.
It's got its own printery.
It's got its own carpentry workshop.
But...
The grand marble foyer that you walk into when you walk through the main doors of Parliament House.
And another fun fact about Parliament House is that all the doors, if you open them up all the way through, you can see straight through the building.
Amazing.
Which they never do because, of course, security.
Too drafty.
Oh, security, yeah.
Draft and security.
Anyway.
So they imported all of this shiny limestone to make this beautiful floor and and there's a little fossil in one of the steps that goes up to the Queen's Terrace and He looks like a little prawn.
He's about the size of a 20 cent coin.
And look, I have consulted experts about this creature.
And apparently it may be a coral or a sea fossil of some kind.
There's a lot of argument about it, but he looks like a prawn.
And his nickname is Shaun the Prawn.
And every time I walk past there, I think about the people that have stepped on Shaun over the years the politicians, the world leaders, the tourists, the people.
Indeed.
And I think, hello, Sean.
And I, given that he's 350 million years old, he's a fossil.
He's getting a brand new life in Parliament House and he sees a lot of stuff.
And he's getting a brand new life in this excellent new book of yours, because he serves as the guide really, doesn't he?
Throughout the book to help explain to kids the different parts of Parliament House, but also the different parts of how our government and how our system of government works.
Why is that an important thing for kids to know?
Essentially the parliament.
I mean you see it on TV.
It seems to be adults shouting at each other uncontrollably.
It doesn't necessarily always look terribly functional.
But essentially, a democracy is when a large group of people...
Get together and work out how best to make decisions for everybody, because I mean, we can't all do every single thing ourselves.
Like imagine if you had to do your own dental work and also build a car, and also you know direct traffic and set up a school for your children or whatever.
Yeah. simpler as humans to get together and delegate.
Say well, you can be in charge of police and you can be in charge of hospitals and you can be in charge of schools.
And that's essentially what government is.
We elect people to represent us.
In Australia, we are divided up into 150 chunks that are called electorates.
And each of them has like around about 100000 people and each of them elect every three years, when we have an election, a representative to go and sit in the House of Representatives and basically the party that has the most elected representatives, whether it's the Labor Party or the Liberal Party or whatever forms the government, and away we go.
But the big thing to remember about Parliament and democracy is that it's sort of Based on the idea not that everybody agrees on everything, but that people disagree on lots of things, right.
Sure.
So the parliament is an organised way of arriving at a compromise.
And a compromise normally is an outcome where nobody's 100% happy.
Yeah.
Everybody's a little bit grumpy.
You know like when you're getting together with your friends and you're like, let's do this.
I want pizza.
I want pasta.
I don't want to go to the movies.
I don't want to go to the movies.
And you essentially come to an arrangement that kind of makes the most people the happiest.
Yes.
And then you say to the really grumpy people, maybe next time you'll get your way.
That's what compromise is about.
And that is essentially what parliaments are about.
And one of the things you talk about in the book and you've just talked about a little bit now and it's especially important at the moment.
We've talked about it in the Squeeze Kids podcast, especially with everything that's happened in the United States with Charlie Cooper.
Kirk.
Right.
Yeah.
I've been talking with my kids about that a lot.
How you can have a different opinion and you don't have to be offended by the fact someone's got a different opinion to you, or upset by it or angry about it.
It's just the idea that it's great to have different opinions, and that's what makes the world interesting.
Yeah.
Look, I think that sometimes, when the world is so full of confusion and there's a lot of information coming at you through your phone or your laptop or whatever, sometimes it feels like There's some comfort in getting together with a bunch of people that you agree with and then kind of locking yourself into a little space and going.
The rest of them are bad people.
We're the only ones that are right and I love you guys and everybody else is a jerk.
Yeah.
Now, the truth is that there is sort of good and bad in most people.
I think the trick to disagreement is to disagree with the idea, but not hate the person you know because actually – disagreement can be fascinatingly interesting.
Yes.
And I interview a lot of politicians on a show that I do called Kitchen Cabinet.
Sometimes I won't agree with them.
But I really am interested to learn how they developed that point of view, right?
Yes.
And the great thing about disagreeing with people is it's sort of win-win, because if you have a conversation with somebody where you walk in and you think, now I think you are probably wrong and you have a long conversation, two things can happen.
Yeah.
One, you listen and you think, huh, actually, maybe I've missed something here.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe it's a bit more complicated than I thought.
Yeah.
So that's good because you've just got smarter.
Yes.
Or you walk out of it and you think, I was completely correct.
You don't know what you're talking about and I was right.
Yeah.
Which also makes you feel great.
Yeah.
And I guess –
You've just touched upon as well, and something we talk a lot about in the podcast, especially with our New Sounds program, is social media will, and the algorithm will, push you into those little corners, as you've just described.
And you don't really know what's happening either.
And you don't know that suddenly you're only surrounded by people who have the same opinion as you.
I mean, Squizzy the News Hound in the News Hound program teaches kids to stop, think and check.
And one of the things we're always saying is like, when you see a piece of content online, think about who's made that and what are they trying to make me think?
Right.
Yes, because sometimes they're trying to make money off, you know, particularly circulating content that will make you angry or that will make you, you know, take action of some kind.
It's really important to question that.
And that's why I love Squizzy because I think Squizzy's on the right trail with this.
And there are lots of places where you can go and just check and talk and seek another opinion.
And it's really useful to do that because you just get smarter.
It's not like There's no embarrassment about being, you know, mistaken about something, but it's always best to do everything you can to make sure you've got every possible point of view.
And it's like it is it's a lot.
It's a big responsibility.
And I think part of being a democracy is.
And our democracy is quite unusual.
We have compulsory voting, for instance, which is very rare around the world.
In Australia, we think it's perfectly normal.
In America, they think we're crazy.
It's a very interesting element of our system because it means that we make an effort to ask the opinion of everybody.
And it means that we all have a responsibility.
Yes.
To not just go in there every three years and just sort of scribble on a piece of paper and get a sausage.
But to think about the power that we all have as individuals to be a part of this democracy.
And to not take it for granted, as you say, because there are lots of countries in the world that don't have the benefit of the vote.
Yeah.
And there are some that kind of pretend.
Like in North Korea, this is very weird.
In North Korea, they do have voting.
Mm-hmm.
And it's compulsory.
One of the other countries where voting is compulsory.
And the turnout rate is 100%.
And it is.
And there's only one name on the ballot paper.
One name.
One name.
One name to choose from.
And you have to fill it out in front of an official that's watching you.
One of the fascinating things about the Australian democracy is We actually invented a lot of cool stuff.
Do you know who invented the secret ballot?
Like the idea of going into a little booth and filling out a ballot paper in secret?
I do know because I read it in your book.
We did.
And do you know why?
Was in 1843 and voting took place in public and that meant mainly at the pub.
Wow.
Anyway.
Anyway.
They'd stand up and make speeches and the voters, only men were allowed to vote, only men with property, they had to get up and say out loud who they were voting for.
Wow.
Right?
And they would announce the numbers as they went along.
Right.
And the candidates would bribe the voters with beer and food.
It was absolute chaos.
There was a riot.
Someone was stabbed.
So Australians...
In South Australia, I have to say, because I'm from South Australia and I'm very proud of this.
Shout out.
SA great.
I said, look, we don't want to be bullied when we vote.
We don't want our boss or our friends or even the candidate to be watching us.
Yeah.
We're going to do it by a secret ballot.
We're going to fill out a piece of paper and then get somebody independent to count it.
And that's an amazing power to have.
If you're a person part of a democracy, you have the power to sack someone who is powerful, is the prime minister or whatever by changing your vote.
It's amazing.
Time for this.
Quiz.
Now I've read your excellent new book and it occurred to me that the best way to talk about what's in it is to submit you the author.
Are you going to squiz me?
Do a squiz.
Do you know, I feared that this might happen when I was driving here today.
I thought, if I get squiz'd.
You're going to get squiz'd.
Question number one.
Yes.
You ready for this?
Yeah, sort of.
Parliament House in Canberra is a super impressive building, as you write about in the book, built into the side of a hill with a massive pyramid-shaped flagpole on top.
What nicknamed locals give the flagpole?
They call it the coat hanger.
It looks a bit like a coat hanger.
Yeah, it's a terrifyingly tall flagpole and the flag up the top is enormous.
And heavy.
Yeah, there are heaps of them and they have to keep changing it because it gets very frayed.
They change it every couple of weeks and then they repair it and then they send the new one up.
And there are people whose job that is, the seamstresses or seamsters.
In Melbourne, yep, there's a special place in Melbourne where they fix them.
They've got about a couple of dozen in rotation and the way that they change the flag is terrifying because there's this little tiny elevator that goes up one of the struts of the flagpole you know the bit of the coat hanger and it's big enough for two people to just squish into like a sardine tin.
And they go up there and they, at the very tippy top of the flagpole, change the flag.
And I've watched it happen and it made me feel ill.
Sick in the tummy.
Yeah.
Terrifying.
All right.
Question number two.
Why did ducks become a problem at Parliament House and what or who was brought in as a solution?
Well, there's a bit of an animal situation.
There's always an animal situation of some kind in Parliament House.
In Australia.
In Australia.
And look, there's heaps and heaps of fountains and lovely little kind of water features in Parliament House.
And look, The courtyards and gardens are beautiful.
Yeah.
And the fountains are there for a reason.
It's because the designers of the building, they wanted every room to have windows.
They wanted it to be full of light.
They wanted it to be full of conversation and opportunities for people to get together and talk and respectfully disagree with each other.
Yeah.
And they put lots of water fountains and features in the courtyards so that people could talk without being eavesdropped on.
Clever.
However – also love bodies of water that are beautifully maintained.
And so a few years back these ducks just started arriving.
Now, if you've ever lived with a duck.
Which I haven't, but go on.
No, but, I mean, let me tell you.
Duck poo is not a good poo.
See, a chicken poo or a pigeon poo, it's sort of a tidy poo.
Okay.
A duck poo, very slimy.
I don't know what it is.
Slimy, splatty.
Slimy, slippery, splatty.
Oh, jeez.
So what do you do?
So politicians slipping in duck poo.
Right?
Not good.
Not good for democracy.
Not good for democracy.
No.
So what did they do?
They brought in a bird of prey.
They brought in a bird of prey to just menace the ducks.
Okay.
Because ducks are not, you know, they're not exactly defenceless, but they're not aggressive either.
And if a falcon turns up, they're like, okay, back to Lake Burley Griffin.
Did it work?
Yeah.
Excellent.
Floyd the falcon.
You can read all about it in There's a Prawn in Parliament House.
All right, question number three.
Ducks aren't the only animal that like to invade Parliament House.
Which insect pays an annual visit to Parliament House on its way to the Snowy Mountains?
Oh, my gosh, this is the funniest.
We've all got different laws and different taxes and different rail lines.
Oh, my gosh.
That's the worst story.
And we live in this big continent, and why don't we all get together and become a nation and just have –.
Simple rules that govern us all, right?
And it was a big argument because the biggest, most powerful colonies were New South Wales and Victoria.
So Adelaide and Perth and Hobart and Brisbane were like why would I hand over my power to you people?
Because, you know, you guys seem like big bullies.
Like, I don't want to just – be ruled by some guy from Sydney.
And that's why we have the Senate, which is the upper house of parliament.
You'll read all about it.
It's got equal numbers from each state.
So that is the protection for the smaller states, right?
But one of the deals with Federation is that the capital couldn't be in Melbourne or in Sydney because all the smaller states are like no.
So the decision was we'll build somewhere that's Equally inconvenient for everyone.
And that's Canberra.
Equally inconvenient for everyone.
Anyway, I've digressed.
Beautiful place, Canberra, to all our listeners in the ACT.
It is a fabulously beautiful place.
Very nicely planned, which is what happens when you deliberately build a city rather than just let it erupt, which is why Sydney is so messy.
But anyway.
They built new Parliament House like the current beautiful Parliament House, on a hill, as I said, and the flagpoles lit up at night.
And it's gorgeous.
And one thing that nobody really took into account was that it is smack bang in the middle of the migration path of a moth called the Bogong Moth.
I love that so much.
A very fat and meaty moth.
I mean, it's been an important food supply for First Nations people.
It's delicious.
But it really does, like all moths, get drawn to light.
And so when they're migrating, they migrate from Queensland to the mountains when things get too hot.
Yeah.
They go straight past Parliament House and they really some years they really stop off for a visit.
And there's just moths everywhere.
I remember once seeing an American president George W Bush this was a long time ago coming to speak in the Parliament and there were just moths flying everywhere.
And I thought, this is very Aussie.
It couldn't be more Australian.
I love that.
Yeah.
Now, question number four.
What does Alice in Wonderland have to do with Australia's voting system?
Okay, this is very, very funny and weird.
So you know Alice in Wonderland?
Yes.
Written by Lewis Carroll.
Yes.
Now, Lewis Carroll was his pen name.
His real name was Charles Dodgson.
So pen name is the name that some authors used to write under.
That's right, yeah.
So in...
In his real life, he was a mathematical genius.
He was a professor at Oxford and he also was an inventor.
He invented an early version of Scrabble.
He invented a device for taking notes in the dark, for when he couldn't be bothered to get up and turn the light on.
But he also designed a preferential voting system.
So I'm just going to explain this quickly.
In most other democracies in the world, they have a system called first past the post.
So like, let's say, We're having an election.
There's five candidates.
You just put a one or a tick in the box next to one name.
And then it all gets counted up and the person with the most votes wins.
Even if they haven't got more than 50, like I mean, if the vote is sort of scattered, that person wins.
So in that scenario, there could be 49% of people who voted whose candidate doesn't get chosen?
It could be 60% of people who voted as candidates.
I often use the example.
Let's say you have three candidates and there's a chihuahua and a Doberman and a Persian cat.
And let's say the dog vote is split between Dobermans and chihuahuas.
And let's say 30% vote for the Doberman and 30% vote for the Chihuahua.
And then the other 40% vote for the cat.
The cat wins.
Even though there's more dog people.
Right.
See what I mean?
See what you mean.
Now what Dodgson did was he said what if we had a preferential voting system where, instead of just marking one name, you listed your candidates in order of preference?
So you go, well, first of all, I love the Chihuahua most.
But if I can't have the Chihuahua, I'll have the Doberman.
But last of all, the cat because I hate cats.
So that way –
The dog people will end.
And then you kind of count it up, see who's got the most first preference votes, and then whoever's got the third most, who's coming last.
Then you get that pile of votes and you redistribute it for their second preference, right.
Yes.
And that way you get a fairer result.
So he got so obsessed with this idea that he wrote it up as a pamphlet and he sent it around Parliament in the late 1800s in Britain and said what about this brilliant idea?
And everybody went, sorry, what?
And moved on.
And then he died.
But 20 years later, after his death, guess which country introduced preferential voting?
Australia.
Australia.
And we are the only country in the world that uses a full compulsory preferential voting system, where we fill out every box.
The only one.
Yeah.
Well, there's a little country called Tokelau.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, in the Pacific.
Okay.
And that's the only other one.
That's borrowed it.
So this is all stuff that I guess we take for granted in this country.
Yeah.
But it's kind of amazing.
Oh, it's incredible.
And Australia is not only...
I think it is the most functional democracy in the world.
And we made these decisions many years ago.
Like preferential voting, like compulsory voting, like having an independent electoral authority to count the votes and to conduct the ballot, like having a secret ballot.
We were really... ahead of our time with this stuff.
And this is why it's such a precious thing for us to protect, to know about.
And you can't really protect something you don't know or understand.
That's right.
And that's why learning about it is – and efforts like your book are so important.
Well, I think sometimes we do – because it works – in a functional way.
I think sometimes we get a bit smug about it, like we take it for granted.
But, you know, democracies can change and you can lose democratic rights.
You can lose the ability to disagree politely and respectfully with each other.
So it's why you just have to keep Keep learning, keep talking to people, keep having conversations and keep your ears open, I guess and be curious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
On that subject.
Next school term we're going to be doing the Squiz Kids interview with House Speaker.
Oh, great.
Yeah, which we're excited about.
And he is going to be asking Squiz Kids to send in their suggestions of what to say to make rowdy MPs behave in the House of Representatives, because obviously, whenever you know, most kids' knowledge of Parliament is what they see on the TV news, and that's grown people shouting at each other.
Yes.
So he's going to read out Squiz Kids' suggestions during the next sitting of Parliament to try to make our elected representatives behave in.
Do you have any suggestions on what he might be able to say to make MPs behave in Parliament?
Well, I always think when people are shouting, the worst thing you can do is shout.
Right?
Yeah.
Because shouting incurs more shouting and...
Trying to stop someone shouting by shouting is one of the most silly things that you can do, because all you end up with is more shouting.
It's like coming across an angry person and trying to make them calm down by getting angry with them.
It's foolish, right?
So I often think if I were a speaker, I would employ the counterintuitive technique of lowering my voice to a very almost chilling tone.
And I'm saying because this, I'm sorry, this is a thing that parents use on kids because we know it works.
I'm not angry.
I'm just disappointed.
Yeah, there's nothing worse, is there, for a kid to hear that.
That's when you know you're in real trouble.
And of course, you've not only been writing this fantastic book, but you've been very busy this year making a television show about our democracy.
Tell us a bit about that.
Yes well, as I was writing the book, I thought I kept kind of surprising myself and thinking God, we really have a remarkable system.
And there's so many interesting stories about how it came about.
And then I accidentally got myself entangled into making a television show about it.
And that's going to air on the ABC network on November the 10th very soon and it's called Annabelle Crabb's Civic Duty.
Brilliant.
Yes.
And what can we expect in the show?
I'm talking to everybody, from politicians to influencers to journalists, about the history of our system, how it's changing with the media, and I even take some trips over to Denmark and to America to have a look at how other systems work.
Fantastic.
All right.
We look forward to seeing that.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap on this Squiz Kids Spotlight.
Thank you for joining myself and the wonderful Annabelle Crabb.
Her new book There's a Prawn in Parliament House is an excellent read, brilliant for kids parents teachers, librarians alike, and available now in all good bookstores.
And a reminder, the Squiz Kids Daily News Podcast will be back for Term 4.
All the big news of the day run through our kid-friendly filter.
Back in your ears from Monday, October 13.
Meanwhile, there's a heap of school holiday content to wrap your ears around.
Just subscribe to Squeeze Kids in your favourite podcasting app.
And if your classroom is keen to join the more than 5000 around the country who have signed up to do News Hounds, our very own, very free media literacy program for primary school kids, head on over to squeezekidscomau.
Now Annabelle, it's customary when we have a guest on Squeeze Kids that we get them to deliver the traditional Squeeze Kids sign-off.
So, can I ask you to do the honours?
I was just considering doing it in a low, menacing voice.
Now get out there and have a most excellent day.
Over and out.
He doesn't know what he really thinks.
He does not know what he really thinks Mr Speaker.
This is question time, not sledge time.
Members will cease interjecting, and you don't need to be terribly experienced to know that this is a very bad time to interject.
I'm issuing a general warning.
If members want to continue interjecting, I'll eject them.
There's no point in me repeating myself over and over again.
I have asked for silence.
I, my, my... Order!
Order!
Order!
Order!
It's time for silence.
I'm not quite sure what whoever found that so funny laughed out loud then, but... Order!
Order!
Order!
Members on my left will cease interjecting.
Order.
I have asked for silence.
It's time for silence.
There is far too much noise.
I can't hear a word that is being said.
I'm just going to dial it down.
The member for Gippsland, it may be your birthday, but you're getting close to a warning as well.
I've asked for silence.
It applies to you.
Order.
