Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT – ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING INTERVIEW WITH MELISSA CLARKE AND JEROME LAXALE
Thursday, 9 October 2025
Topics: Trump Israel/Hamas peace deal; expansion of federal parliament; childcare abuse scandals
MELISSA CLARKE: Alright, well, it’s time to bring in the political panel for today. There’s lots of news to get through and not a lot of time, but we’ll do the best we can. We’ve got Jerome Laxale, the Labor MP from Bennelong, who is with us and a member of Labor’s Environment Action Network, and Zoe McKenzie, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Early Learning. Thank you both for being with me today. I do want to start with the big news today of the Gaza peace plan. Jerome, if I can start with you, do you think that the approach that Western nations and Gulf nations have taken in trying to map out a diplomatic process have helped us arrive at this situation?
JEROME LAXALE: Oh, absolutely. I mean, you look at how Australia has acted throughout this process. We’ve always acted, you know, with other countries, never unilaterally. The latest evidence of that was at the UN, where we recognised the state of Palestine with the UK, Canada and France. And we now see President Trump working with the Arab League nations. And I think that’s a really important development.
MELISSA CLARKE: Did it really actually take Donald Trump to get involved for this? Is that really the marker of what has moved things forward?
JEROME LAXALE: Well, I think the US has a very special relationship with affairs in the Middle East, right, as do the Arab League. And the fact that they’re both working together and have struck this deal, we anticipate importantly, ensuring that there’s no involvement of Hamas, which is something that has been Australia’s position for quite a long time. So I’m hopeful it is progress. And hats off to the US and to the Arab League nations for getting there.
MELISSA CLARKE: Zoe, we’ve got a tense weekend to get through before, apparently, hostages are released on Monday. But there must be a lot of relief amongst the community, even here in Australia, where there are many connections in Victoria too, your state, to people who are directly affected by this. So there must be a real outswelling of emotion at the moment.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Both here, obviously, and in Israel. I imagine Hostages Square right now would be quite a sight for gathering reflection and gratitude for what has happened. It’s interesting, it was the second year anniversary on Tuesday, the 7th of October, and I went back through some of the emails and letters I had received from members of Melbourne’s Jewish community, in particular gratitude for the bipartisan trip I went on in December, straight after the October events, and indeed, you know, the advocacy for making sure anti-Semitism did not spread in Australia. We’ve had a terrible couple of years of anti-Semitic acts. Hopefully, this will put all of that to an end. While we want to see peace in the Middle East, but we want to see greater social cohesion at home as well, and I hope that is what we will see.
MELISSA CLARKE: Now, I did mention there’s a lot going on, so I want to do a bit of a hand-brake turn to a very domestic issue, and Jerome, it’s one that is related to you specifically, given you’re the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, and there’s been a bit of discussion this week about the inquiries that you’ll be undertaking, including looking at the possibility of expanding the size of the Australian parliament, possibly having more politicians. What are you going to be looking at?
JEROME LAXALE: Well, the last time parliament was expanded was in 1984, and at that time, each lower house MP looked after about 104,000 citizens. We’ve now got some seats that have over 200,000 Australians per seat. And we’ll just be asking for people’s feedback on that concept. You know, like, there’s a really interesting poll from the Australia Institute. Only 15% of people have spoken to the MP before. Only 37% of people can name their local MP. Is this the type of representation that people want? You know, it takes me two to three months to respond to an email because I get so many. I don’t like that it takes me that long.
MELISSA CLARKE: It must be very frustrating for constituents.
JEROME LAXALE: Yeah, it is frustrating for me. It’s frustrating for constituents. I’d love to do more, but I simply don’t have the time. So we’ll be unpacking that. You know, I think for every person that says we should increase it, you’ll get one or two people that say we shouldn’t. So we’ll get all that evidence. I’m really interested to find out what Australians think about it.
MELISSA CLARKE: What do you think, Zoe?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, I’m happy to buy a beer for any punter that writes to Jerome and says, I want more politicians in this country. Are you kidding? And may I say, Jerome, it doesn’t take me two or three months to get back, unless, of course, I have to refer an email inquiry to a minister, in which case it does take a long time. But I do try and get back to my constituents faster than that.
MELISSA CLARKE: But you’ve got a lot of constituents.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yeah, we do, we do. And of course, our offices work 24/7. We have the most amazing people who work for us, and they work their guts out for our constituents. And that is a joy, and that is a privilege for what we get to do. But I get that it does put pressure on the system. And thanks, Mr Albanese, for taking away some of our portfolio staff, which means our electorate staff have to do more of the portfolio responsibilities that we now have. Nevertheless, I still don’t think…
MELISSA CLARKE: Well might that be a reason? If you have more MPs, you’ve also got more staff that come with more MPs. Would that better serve as constituents?
ZOE MCKENZIE: The Treasurer did give us an extra electorate officer about a year and a half ago, which was well received at the time. But again, cutting the portfolio staff, which was taking with one hand and getting rid with another. My feeling is that Australians don’t want to see, at this point of time, particularly with cost of living pressures, more money spent on politicians. But I accept that Jerome will have a good debate within the confines of his inquiry. We’ll see what happens. But again, I will buy a beer for any punter that says, please give me more pollies.
JEROME LAXALE: You know the excise rate has been frozen on that beer that you’re going to buy.
ZOE MCKENZIE: I also don’t drink beer, so it’ll be a cheap date.
MELISSA CLARKE: Alright, Zoe, while we’ve got you, I do want to talk about a childcare issue given as your shadow portfolio area. And we’ve seen quite a few disturbing reports recently in this space. We’ve seen a 15-week-old baby die in an unlicensed home care situation in Victoria. We’ve seen more issues around one of the big home care companies. Apparently, delaying giving forward information. Are we seeing enough progress in reforming this sector?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So it’s an excellent question. And may I say, I compliment the government on the bipartisan stance that they have taken. Jonno Duniam and I have worked really closely with Minister Clare and Minister Walsh’s teams to make sure whatever we can do from the Commonwealth perspective, we are, in fact, doing. So much of this regulatory work and policing work falls to the state jurisdictions. And we’ve had a number of meetings. There was a meeting in this building, I think, back in August. They really need to be very front-footed. To be fair, some of the revelations from the ABC today are, in fact, historical. But nevertheless, it’s a reminder that action is urgent and that we must do all we can to get to the bottom of it, because parents are really worried about what they’re seeing. And may I say, though, we put to the test today in the floor of the Parliament measures to increase vigilance around child sexual abuse material. The government did not come with us on that. But frankly, we need to be vigilant, because a lot of these assertions of what’s happening in our childcare centres relates to material that then gets sent around. We must be vigilant, and we must act in relation to those crimes.
MELISSA CLARKE: Jerome, we’re really running up against the clock. But I think I can fairly summarise on your behalf that the government agrees this is something that really needs to be worked on, and is being worked on, and that there is a lot of agreement around trying to progress some of the reforms as quickly as possible.
JEROME LAXALE: Absolutely. What I was going to add to Zoe’s remarks was that what we’ve proposed to date and put through Parliament is not the end of it. There is still more to do. And the Minister’s made that very clear.
MELISSA CLARKE: Yeah, that’s great. Look, Jerome Laxale, thank you very much for joining me. And Zoe McKenzie, thank you too.
ENDS.
