My Chat with Erin Molan, Australia's Superstar Honey Badger (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_761)
Episode Stats
Summary
Learn English with Erin Mullen, host of the iconic Australian TV show "Friday Night Footy" and host of Australia's first women's football team, the Sydney Roar. Erin talks about growing up in a military family, how she became a broadcaster, and how she went on to become one of the most influential people in Australian sport.
Transcript
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Hi, everybody. This is God's Side for the Sad Truth. Today, I'm very honored for a specific reason,
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because this lovely individual, it's six o'clock in the morning there, and she's willing to wake up this
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early to come speak to humble me. Erin Mullen, how you doing? Oh, God, it's so lovely to be with you.
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Thank you so much for having me. I did breakfast radio for four years, so 6am is nothing, my friend. I
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would get up earlier for you, I promise, but I used to have to set my alarm for 4am for over four years,
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so it's an honor to be with you. I'm such a big fan, so thank you for having me.
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Oh, thank you. I first heard of you because people would send me, I mean, usually they were
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pro-Israel supporters, and they would just endlessly send me links to this Australian firecracker,
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and that's how originally we connected, but let's take it back. I want to make sure that I get the key
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points in your bio correctly. You used to be a TV personality on a rugby channel or something of
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that sort, right? So by rugby, we don't mean Australian rules football, we mean traditional
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rugby, correct? So rugby league, not even rugby. So we've got three, well, four codes in Australia
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that are pretty big. So AFL, rugby union, rugby league, and then football and soccer, we call it
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soccer here. And rugby league is, I say, the biggest, but people where I am now, which is in
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Melbourne, like to argue that AFL is much bigger. It depends on where you live in Australia. But I
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started out hosting rugby league, so I was the first woman to host the footy show, which was like a kind
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of weekly rugby league program. Then moved into hosting Friday Night Footy, doing games, and yeah,
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from there, I kind of evolved into where I am now. My dad was actually in the army for many years,
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and so we moved around, and one of the probably most impactful postings that he had was in Indonesia,
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in Jakarta, during 1998, when the Suharto regime fell. And I would have been 14 or 15 years old at the
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time, but I remember, even quite young, being so astonished by watching a country stand up and fight for
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democracy. He was a ruler that was in power for 30 years, his children owned every major piece of
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infrastructure, and then the country decided that they'd had enough, and they wanted democracy, freedom,
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fairness, opportunity. And they hit the streets, a lot of people died, they gave their lives. So
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watching that as a young person really instilled in me this sense of social justice, and this sense
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of fighting for what's right, and being willing to give your life for that. And I obviously had dad
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who was in the army as well. So I think even though I did sport for many years, hosted the Australian
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Open, hosted tennis, lots of different things, the passion for me was always national security,
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politics, foreign affairs, much more in that space. If I can put it in a succinct way. I got sick of
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talking about men's groins at 11pm on a Friday night. As I got older, I thought there's got to be
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more life than this, as much as I love. And now I found it.
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Now you found it. I mean, I think you're being modest about that. He wasn't just in the army,
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he was a general, was he not? He was a major general, absolutely in the Australian army. He
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was incredible. At 17 years old, he got in a train by himself from Melbourne to Canberra to
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Duntroon. And it was his dream job. He graduated from Duntroon, which is a staff college, officer
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college here in Australia, the year that the Vietnam War ended, actually. So he didn't go to Vietnam,
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but he then had this, the most incredible career where he, he was the most active Australian general
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slash officer in many, many years, since probably the end of World War II, end of Vietnam. He ran the
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war in Iraq for a year, actually, as part of the coalition operation. So he was chief of staff there.
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So he worked with some incredible people, people that I'm still in contact today, General Petraeus,
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lots of different generals there and ran that war and ran their first democratic election as well
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in 30 years. So it was his job to do all the logistics behind that, to protect all the Iraqi
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people who, for the first time, as I said, in decades, were lining up to vote and have their say,
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given how tumultuous their lives had been thus far. So he cared deeply. He had a moral compass
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like no other. And I didn't really understand that, God, for many years in terms of just what that
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meant or how difficult it was to maintain that. But he was also, he had a great sense of humour.
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He then became an Australian senator as well. And he, this is my humble brag, because it's not
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so much, it's not me, it's him, but he's the most individually voted for politician in Australian
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history. And it just goes to show he was, you know, you look at so many politicians who have been
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from day dot, university, politics, straight into politics, no real life experience. I've never had
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real jobs. And a lot of them care deeply and good on them. They do wonderful jobs. A lot of them don't,
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but some of them do. But I think you just can't replace someone who's lived in the real world and
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done real things, going into politics and helping shape policy and shape the future of a nation,
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particularly when it comes to national security. So his loss last year was, I say it's a privilege
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to still feel this, this sick, guttural pain. And I do every, every day, we're coming up to two years
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now. But I think what a privilege that it still hurts so much, because if it didn't hurt as much,
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he wouldn't have been so amazing. So I see it as often an honour. Yeah, that's beautiful. I saw the
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tweet that you put out, and I think I responded to it. And it actually, I mean, in Arabic, there's an
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expression where you don't compare yourself to someone who's deceased, because that way, you know,
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it's like a curse. But seeing the glowing love you had for him reminded me of my own relationship
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with my daughter, who just turned 15. A few years ago, I was giving a plenary talk lecture
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for Hillsdale College. I don't know if you know them there. Have you heard of Hillsdale College?
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I've heard them, yes. Yeah, Hillsdale College is sort of one of these real beautiful little gems of,
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you know, there are 4000 universities in the United States, but they don't accept any
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funding from the government so they can be truly free. So they, you know, very much classical liberal
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tradition, you know, somewhat conservative values, and so on. So they had invited me down to Naples,
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Florida to speak. And I had, you know, discussed the parasitic mind and so on. And at the end of my
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talk, my whole family was there at the end of my talk, as I was a, you know, pretty, pretty sizable
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crowd. And as I walked down from the podium, my daughter comes and hugs me and just whispers in my ear,
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I'm so proud of you, dad. And I swear to God, that was, and she was about 12 at the time.
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That probably was a bigger accolade for me that my 12 year old daughter would say, I'm so proud of you,
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dad, than all of the other accolades combined. So I really do appreciate the love that you exhibit
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for your dad. That's really beautiful. And I remember when I realized that not that dad was
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special in any way that is elitist or wanky or anything like that. But when I realized just how
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special he was in terms of what he stood for and who he was, which I know that your daughter would
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relate to with me with what you do, because it's not, it's not easy. And he used to always say,
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actually, he was, would do a lot of television, a lot of speaking, a lot of different things. And
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he would joke that the saddest day of his life, and you look at all that he'd achieved in conflict,
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in Australia, in politics, everything else. There came a moment when I started to make my
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own name in television and in a very different field, obviously in sport, but he said he went
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from being, you know, Major General Jim Molan, Senator Jim Molan to Aaron Molan's dad.
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But I know he also was immensely proud of that. And, and, you know, I miss him so much. And I'm so sad
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that I can't talk to him now, because sometimes I feel like I need him now more than I ever have. But
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I'm not overly spiritual, I don't think. But I, I hope that he's still with me in some way,
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shape or form. And I, I feel him sometimes I'd like to feel him here a lot more. But I'm hoping
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that will come as more time passes. That's beautiful. May he rest in peace. And his,
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his legacy will live on through just something as simple as this conversation, right? He is alive
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Yeah, gab that they say people die twice once when they take their final breath. And the second time when you
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stop saying their name. And this is, I made a promise to dad that he would never die twice under
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my watch. So I will speak about him. I go to the airport yesterday, people come up and say your dad
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was amazing. And then they say, Oh, I'm so sorry to bring him up. That must upset you. Oh, my gosh,
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no, the opposite. I say, you know, dad, dad had a healthy ego. He loved people talking about him
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and liking him as his daughter does a little bit as well. So I say, bring it on, bring it on.
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Beautiful. So would it be fair to say, as I'm sitting here and sort of looking at you for long,
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I mean, I, you were kind enough to invite me on your show, but it was only, I think a six minute
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hit. So I didn't get to, you know, I'm focusing on what I have to say and so on. You're kind of
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reminding me, I hope it's not an insult to say this. Are you the Australian Megan Kelly?
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Look, it's, it's been said to me a few times and it's, it's an incredible honor. My gosh,
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I take that every single day of the week. I'm different though in, in, I don't feel like I fit
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into, and you're probably very similar when I look into you and, and, and what you believe and
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what you feel and what you stand for. Just like she, she is as well. I think in some ways I'm quite
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socially progressive. In other ways, I'm very conservative when it comes to the economy, national
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security. I've just, and I'll be honest with you, I felt the way that I felt for a very long time,
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but I didn't quite have the courage to express it until very recently, very recently. And I don't
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know what the catalyst for that was. It wasn't, it wasn't when dad died. That was a couple of years
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ago. And even then I still had this fear because I worked in, in so many different worlds and I
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worked in breakfast radio where my audience were mums driving to school and it was a comedy show. So we
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just laughed and we talked about Taylor Swift and, you know, all different things that, that were fun,
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but, but not really of substance when you look at the world today and the things that really matter,
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but, but great fun. But it's only in the last six months that I've really started to, to find my
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voice. And I look at women like her and I think it's, it's similar, right? I think you, you get to
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a stage where you're old enough, you're ugly enough, you're wise enough. You care much, much less
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what people think, but you care much, much more what the right people think. So I care much less
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now about people who are nasty, who are, who don't contribute a thing, could not care less.
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If I love you or you pay me, I care deeply what you think. That's it. Anyone else couldn't care less,
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but I care much more deeply about what people who almost can't articulate what they think or my,
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my daughter, my six-year-old, what she needs from me is to fight for the kind of world that I want
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her to exist in when she's older. So it's, it's funny. You, you care less in some ways, but you
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care deeply more in other ways. And then this ability to just, to speak without fear has taken
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over me in, in a way that, that has surprised me in, in some circumstances as well. But it's,
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it's also a great privilege, I think, to have a platform and you would know that as well in your
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world. And I think if you have a platform, I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I used
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the platform that I had and I said things that either I didn't believe or that weren't genuine
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or that were trying to placate different audiences, different people, or if I was trying to, to have
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everyone like me, that's one of the greatest things dad ever did was there was a protest at
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university when he came home from Iraq and they were calling him a war criminal. And I was so upset
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by it. I was like, how am I, my dad is, my dad is so brave. He saved so many lives, millions of
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lives, you know, in East Timor, in Iraq. I forget he's incredible. These people are calling him a
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war criminal. And about two weeks later, I walk into his office at home and it's laminated on the
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wall. This, this poster calling him a war criminal. And he said, Erin, you haven't made it till they
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protest at university calling you a war criminal. And you know why? Because I fought for their right to
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do that. The irony, huh? And that was it. He would not care. He was so self-assured and he knew
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beyond any doubt that every decision he made was in the best interest of whoever he was trying to
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protect. He was so noble that he did not care less because he had no doubt. Wow. Well, I'm glad that
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I was the first to educate the great Erin about what it means to be a honey badger. I was surprised
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that you didn't know. I mean, I thought that was sort of a universal archetype. So now you clearly
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understand the great compliment that it is. Yes? Absolutely. See, the issue is, Gab, that here
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in Australia, we have a honey badger who was a rugby union player and he became the honey badger. And he
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was this real ocker Australian who had this, this outback humor. And then he ended up doing the Bachelor
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series as a celebrity bachelor. His name's Nick Cummins. And at the end, and believe you me,
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I've matured since watching the Bachelor, I promise you, I'm really mature and sophisticated
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now. But back in the day, 10 years ago, whenever I used to watch it, he had these two beautiful
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women at the end. He didn't choose one of them and both their hearts were broken. So then in my mind,
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the honey badger became this evil person who wouldn't choose a woman to marry. So now I'm glad
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it's been redefined in my mind. So I'll take it. Beautiful. Okay. So I want to talk a bit about,
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I mean, I have an Australian person, so I have a deep love for Australia for several reasons.
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Let's begin with reason one and go back to memory lane to landing in Sydney, 2001. It's my first
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sabbatical leave. So I'm taking seven weeks in to tour Australia and New Zealand, two weeks,
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New Zealand, five weeks, Australia. My wife and I, we didn't have children then we land in Sydney.
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Of course, it's a very long trip from Montreal. We're in King's Cross, which I hear is a pretty
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shady area. Is that right? We had no... Let's go through phases. But yeah, there's a lot of
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gang type stuff back in the day and strippers. So that's what I saw. I didn't feel very,
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you know, threatened. I just felt like it was slightly seedy. But as we walked around,
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I landed in this kind of cafe, neighborhood cafe, where I had the first orgasmic flat white,
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and I still have not recovered. I still have not been able to find that hit. And so my wife and I
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will often talk about, do you think we could ever replicate that first time? So you clearly know what
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I'll tell you now, Gad, you are, you are already a king here in many circles, but you've just widened
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that significantly because most people know that Australian coffee is the best in the world,
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but the majority of foreigners will never admit it. So thank you. That, that, that was incredible.
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100%. And I mean, I'm from Montreal. We've got, of course, in the Middle East, the coffee tradition.
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So I'm a coffee snob and I've never experienced... Now, not every place I went in Australia,
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the coffee was as good, but certainly that first one, absolute top World Cup. It's the Messi,
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the Lionel Messi of coffee. So you could put that on a...
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Oh my God. What's the name? I mean, this could launch them into...
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Can I tell you something? I've often fantasized about whether I can go back to that spot and
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they're still open now. This is 2001. So it's 23 years ago. The likelihood of a cafe being open for
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that long is probably remote, but... Particularly with our political government there. That would
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also be very hard for them to have stayed open for that long. Oh, is that right? Okay. Well,
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if by, by fluke, they know who they are, please send me an email, but it was really sort of off.
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It wasn't on the main street of, you know, the King's Cross. It was an off street, sort of the bottom
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of a residential building and it was just magical. All right, let's keep going. So I just make the
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point that I've, I've heard many men start a line toward me and it's maybe getting a little bit less
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as I get older, but I've often fantasized about, but none of them have ever finished it with finding
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that coffee shop again. So I just want to let you know, thanks. I have to be careful. I'm a married
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man. So I've got to do the whole, uh, professorial. Very lucky. Well, thank you. Uh, all right. So
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first I begin with Sydney. Sydney was absolutely outrageous because it reminded me of Southern
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California, but just with people with weird accents. Does that make sense? Yes. It makes total sense.
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I think you've nailed it. There you go. Then I go to Melbourne and I had heard in the past that
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Melbourne is akin to Montreal. There's, there's been a, so I, I live in Montreal. Uh, so a lot
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more sort of cultured and so on. So loved Melbourne, uh, even won 20 Australian dollars in the Melbourne
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casino on, on the river or whatever it's called. And I told my wife, if we win $20, we stop. So that
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way we paid for the all you can eat buffet. So that was that. Then, uh, we went to, is it Phillips Bay?
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Yes. Yes. Correct. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Beautiful. Then we hit, uh, the great ocean, uh, road. I
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still haven't done that ever in your life. Never. I need to get out more. I'm actually quite a
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non-social. I get social awkwardness and anxiety. So I just stay home generally for the most part,
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but I need to hit the great ocean road. Clearly. Or you will find the right people to invite me over
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and pay me the right remuneration and then we'll go do it together.
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Do you know what? That is a great point. And for everyone listening here, if you want to bring
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this man over, come on, come on. There you go. Uh, here's me being a Jew again. Look,
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Jews just run after the money. That's all we care about. I'm just doing it. Uh, all right,
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let's go on. Uh, then after that Adelaide, it's slightly bit more, not antiseptic, gorgeous,
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but a bit more sort of planned, rectangular, so on. Then we went to Kangaroo Island.
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Oh yes. Then Brisbane, surface paradise and so on. And now I come to arguably, uh, the,
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the scariest part. We ended up in Cairns and I've often joked that if I were hired to be the
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tourism board director of Cairns, here's what the slogan would be. Come visit us in Cairns where
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I tell you being there, you're being only a thousand. Wow. You must've gone and no, look,
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it's, I've only been to Cairns twice. And once was, we took a group of radio listeners and look,
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there are, it is stunningly beautiful in some parts, in other parts, not so much, which is
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probably reminiscent of most places in the world, but how did you nearly die? This is a great story.
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Get ready. You're right. I'm going to try to list them off my head. The date, the, I think it was
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like sort of dusk. As we get there, there was a level one, I guess you guys call it cyclone or
00:20:39.680
typhoon, whichever, a hurricane basically. So there was that. So we had to be careful. Second. So that's
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number one, death. Number two, be careful. Don't walk here or there. Cause there are all sort of
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rowdy indigenous guys that will pick fights with you. Number two, number three, be careful. Don't
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get stung by mosquitoes, which is not a difficult thing for me to try to avoid. Cause I have a huge
00:21:01.340
mosquito phobia because they have Ross river fever. Number three, number four, don't go into any of
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these gorgeous beaches because the box jellyfish will kill you. Number five, there is a spillover from
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the rivers. So the salties, the salt crocodiles will come on the beach, be very careful. They'll
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kill you. And then to end it all, there was about four different types of man eating sharks
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lurking. If you actually wanted to jump in the water and not be killed by the box jellyfish.
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Oh, it sounds like a typical Australian town with the nature and the wildlife. Absolutely. But
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isn't it, isn't it exciting? Wouldn't it be so boring if you went to a place, I know like
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Hawaii, where you just lay on the beach and there was nothing trying to kill you. I mean,
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live a little gad, come on, live on the edge. You were an adventurer.
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Very true. All right. So I missed probably Perth.
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And Canberra. Don't people in Australia are so mean to Canberra. We're our own people. I was born
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there. They say it's boring. Oh, it's got Parliament House. They hate it. It's politics,
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blah, blah, blah. It is one of the most incredible places in the world. It is one of the most
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aesthetically beautiful places. And I'm obviously a little bit biased as I consider it home,
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but it's just Canberra in autumn. That's when you need to go driving down some of those streets and
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the lake and it's beautiful. So Canberra next time, it doesn't usually top the list of kind of must-see
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places, but it should. Oh, wow. So that's the capital, correct? Capital, yes. So it's kind of
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like our Ottawa. Yes. Yeah. And it's got the war memorial as well, which I guess just given
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dad and my kind of passion in that space, it's the most incredible place where you just, I mean,
00:22:53.440
not enough young people do it today in so many ways. And I'm sure you would agree with this in
00:22:58.740
terms of actually understanding history. But when you want to decide that you care deeply about
00:23:03.680
something, when you want to advocate for something, when you want to protest, you know,
00:23:07.340
I feel like protesting is just back in the day, protesting was such a noble thing because people
00:23:13.300
understood the cause. People protested for things that were genuine and legitimate and they fought
00:23:19.900
because they understood. Nowadays, I see so many people protesting for hate and terror and evil
00:23:26.520
because most of them don't understand. Some of them absolutely understand and that their
00:23:32.340
intentions are awful. But a lot of people just don't understand. So I feel like going to places
00:23:36.960
like that, going to places where you actually learn and understand history and understand. And
00:23:41.960
you, I've mentioned you probably 50 times since we did our interview. Even last night, I was at an
00:23:47.020
event in Melbourne at a fundraiser because what I'd struggled with so much since speaking out in
00:23:52.340
this space and so many young people said, don't you care about all the kids dying in Gaza?
00:23:57.020
Don't you? I read a headline about something bad happening to a child and I am in tears. I am the
00:24:03.820
most empathetic, emotional person. You know, my daughter has a blocked nose and I feel sad because
00:24:10.420
she might be uncomfortable. Because I care so much is why I stand so strongly against terror,
00:24:17.400
against the people causing that death. And I said to you, how can these people who wave the flags of
00:24:21.740
must legitimately believe that they are helping children? And you said to me about this concept
00:24:27.740
of suicidal empathy, about the book you're currently writing. And it's blown my mind. It's comforted me
00:24:33.560
in so many ways because I go, okay, now I get it. Because people, yeah, so many people seem so,
00:24:41.640
just so confused in so many ways. But when you put it that way, I went, that's it. You've nailed it.
00:24:47.200
And that is one of the greatest issues that we as a society face is misplaced empathy. Because I
00:24:51.500
like to believe most people are inherently good. So if they're inherently good, why are they
00:24:56.780
supporting terror? And you're right, you've nailed it there. So I think your education coming back to
00:25:02.500
the War Memorial is kids' understanding. So therefore, they can put their energy and their passion and
00:25:07.760
their fight into things that are noble. And it doesn't mean it has to be things I agree with,
00:25:12.280
but things they understand and things that are noble. Yeah, I'm very, thank you for mentioning the
00:25:17.240
book because I'm feverishly writing it, even at a faster pace than I would typically do so. Because
00:25:23.340
it has really gone unbelievably viral. And people don't even, so people are sending me tons of emails
00:25:31.000
saying, well, how come I can't order it? Well, I haven't finished writing it yet, you know, but that's
00:25:35.700
kind of putting, sorry? That's my fault for saying it was done in my newspaper. Maybe you're the cause.
00:25:40.980
No, but thank you. Yeah, so I mean, I'm going to try to have a first draft ready, way ahead of
00:25:48.340
schedule, probably in the next few months. But we'll see, fingers crossed. How is it if you were
00:25:54.240
to look at the ratio of people who come up to you, you know, very complimentary and positive and
00:25:59.820
supportive versus the ones who don't? What is the ratio, I'd like to think, 99 to 1? Or am I being too
00:26:06.820
optimistic? No, do you know what? You've absolutely nailed it again, which doesn't surprise me. But
00:26:12.240
this isn't new to me, right? People disliking me. I feel like, you know, if people, if everyone likes
00:26:17.740
you, you're not doing things passionately enough. You're not standing up for what's right. You're not
00:26:22.460
making enough of a difference. And when I started in football as the first woman to do a fair few
00:26:27.880
different jobs, the people that came out and were so offended by my mere existence were just,
00:26:35.900
you know, online, it felt like so many, you know, be one dickweed 101 on Twitter thinks you need to
00:26:41.700
go back to the kitchen. Oh, thanks, dickweed. Yeah, really, really clever insult there. But in real
00:26:47.100
life, not one, I think one person in 10 years said something mean to me. And I can't even remember,
00:26:52.780
it was in a pub. And I was like, whatever, every other person would come up to me and say, you are
00:26:57.540
amazing. You're leading the way for women, you're incredible, etc, etc. And it's the same in this space.
00:27:02.960
And this is what gives me hope that the vast majority of people understand what's at play
00:27:08.200
here. They don't find it complex. There is no blurry line in terms of, do you support terror or
00:27:13.900
do you support not terror? You know, it is so simple. And I think most people believe that. And
00:27:18.500
look, where I live in Sydney, it's daily. And it makes me sad that people feel the need to thank me
00:27:24.800
because all I'm doing is looking at a situation without any bias, no skin in the game. I'm not Jewish.
00:27:30.300
I'm not from Israel. I've, you know, I'm not married to nothing, zero connection, zero. All I'm
00:27:38.560
doing is looking at a situation, looking at as many facts as I can find, and telling you what I think
00:27:43.960
about it. And that's it. And what I think about it is what I think about it. And in my mind, it's
00:27:49.480
the truth. I'm saying the truth. So the fact that that needs to be thanked, or that people need to
00:27:54.900
be grateful makes me incredibly sad. You get the idiots online. Absolutely. And I, you know, it's,
00:28:00.500
I've got a six year old daughter, so I get threats all the time that scare me. Absolutely. I've had to
00:28:05.940
have police protection. I've had to give my daughter to her father. But when I lay awake at night
00:28:12.180
wondering, is it worth it? Am I endangering her? I think about the kind of world that will exist if I
00:28:18.960
don't do this. And if other people don't do what I'm doing. And the reason I fight so hard, and I
00:28:24.200
stand up so strongly against what I see as terror and evil, and people who only want death, is because
00:28:30.500
I want her to grow up in a world that values life. So when I worry about her safety now, I'm far more
00:28:36.960
worried about it down the track. If people like me, like you, if other people don't stand up and fight
00:28:41.840
for the kind of world that that everyone deserves. Perfectly stated. I think I just found that, you
00:28:47.760
know, those short clips that you have to share, just to make the thing go viral. I think I found
00:28:52.340
that it's around the 30 minute mark. There you go. Let's make it go viral. Where does where does?
00:29:00.980
So let's say we had the the woke meter that or as to use my term, you know, parasitic continuum. So,
00:29:08.620
you know, Canada is an utter disaster. So let's put it at the extreme. I mean, it's kind of trying
00:29:14.540
to now outdo some of the traditionally woke countries, Sweden, and so on. And but certainly
00:29:20.280
with Justin Trudeau, we've perhaps even exceeded the most woke of European countries. United States
00:29:25.920
is turning a bit more work, although, of course, now with Trump winning, there'll be an auto correction.
00:29:33.620
That's a great question. I talk about this analogy when I talk about the perception of a country in
00:29:41.960
Canada, you're right, I look at that country at the moment, and I just think, what a disgrace. Yet,
00:29:47.540
I know that that most people in Canada probably are not representative of that, which gets most of
00:29:54.080
the attention. I think it's the same thing in Australia, we have, we have a very loud minority,
00:29:58.260
a very, very loud minority. And I talk about the fact that the things like, like wokeness or evil
00:30:04.700
or things that hurt us, regardless of how severe they are in the scale, it needs three things to
00:30:10.520
survive and thrive. And that's weak leadership, silent majorities, and useful idiots. And we've
00:30:16.460
got a lot of useful idiots, like there's a lot of people around the world, but what drowns them out
00:30:20.700
is the silent majority being less silent. And that's where I think we've gotten to where we need to
00:30:26.160
make a decision as a people. Do we want these people to get all the airtime on the news every
00:30:31.160
night? Do we do we want our kids looking at a saturated environment where they think that is
00:30:36.300
normal, or that is caring, or that is this or that is that? Or do the silent majority who actually
00:30:41.260
stand for what is good and right in this world, actually want to decide at some point to speak up
00:30:46.880
and to take up the space that's been taken up by them. So we're very woke when it comes to a very
00:30:51.860
loud minority. But but the mainstream Australian, I get reassured of this all the time, I think is is
00:30:58.520
is against all of that. They are kind, they're caring, they're inclusive. You know, I've got a
00:31:03.200
gay brother, I'm socially progressive, I'm but but it's gone to a stage where it has gone so so far
00:31:09.820
that all it is doing is hurting us in so many ways. So so we're we're woke with the minority, but I
00:31:16.060
think the majority is not like most places. I look at so car racing. So when I was a sports host,
00:31:22.260
I would do cover seven or eight hours of car racing. And in my one minute 10 package on the
00:31:28.020
news, the 6pm news each night at 642, it would go to air my one minute 20 package on the Bathurst car
00:31:34.520
racing. What would I show in that one minute 20? Prashers. That was it. I had one minute 20 to fit six,
00:31:41.100
seven hours in. And the most interesting, the most stimulating, the most ratings driven content
00:31:47.440
was the car crashes. So so someone might have driven 800 perfect laps. That might get a say at
00:31:53.660
the end in a little afternoon. Oh, and blah, blah, blah. He was good. But look at Barry and Gary and
00:31:59.600
Darry who all crashed. Oh, it's made, you know, it's exciting. It's, it's dangerous. It's this,
00:32:05.340
it's that. And I see mainstream media in particular, do that all the time, not just with sport,
00:32:11.160
but with everything. So so we might have a day of peace and beauty and fulfilling heart. And then
00:32:17.380
one idiot gets a sign or goes and harasses someone and they make up the majority of the news. So you
00:32:22.720
could watch it and think, my God, but the majority is not like that. Thank goodness.
00:32:28.080
Right. I was trying to think before we began our conversation, how many Australians I've had on the
00:32:33.720
show. And forgive me if I forget to anyone that I might forget, but off the top of my head, I can
00:32:39.520
think of two people, one of whom is your colleague at Sky News Australia. Do you know who I'm talking
00:32:44.880
about? A female. Oh, I do. I have many colleagues, but I don't know which, can I guess? Yes. Only because
00:32:51.320
I saw the other day that she'd retweeted one of your tweets. And so I thought, I wonder if she knows
00:32:56.900
him. Rita? Yes. How's that? Yes, yes, yes. Actually, yes. You and Rita would get along
00:33:03.420
incredibly well. She's been on my show once and she was kind enough to invite me on hers a few
00:33:08.480
times. The other Australian, I really wonder if you would know him. Do you know a lot of the
00:33:14.060
Australian filmmakers? I don't know how famous he is, but I had him on before I even tell you his name.
00:33:20.280
He's a gay filmmaker. Would that help you guess who it might be? Can I be honest?
00:33:26.980
No? I am the worst. So I think the last movie I saw was Mr. Bean's Holiday. I listened to Billy
00:33:34.460
Joel, Rod Stewart and Meatloaf. I am the least cool person when it comes to pop culture, anything new,
00:33:41.060
anything modern. So it's not what I'm trying to say is he should not be offended that I will probably
00:33:45.320
have no idea who you're talking about. Okay, so I'm going to say, but to your point, you mentioned
00:33:49.520
Billy Joel, Rod Stewart and Meatloaf. And I'm going to use, I think you'll understand the reference,
00:33:56.000
two out of three ain't bad. And you know who's the one that I wouldn't include on that list? Mr.
00:34:01.600
Billy Joel. Rod Stewart, legendary Meatloaf. Certainly some of his songs are incredible and
00:34:08.260
certainly two out of three. Billy Joel will have to have a separate private conversation about your
00:34:12.720
love of Billy Joel because that does not... What about Catholic girl stuff? Much too late.
00:34:17.540
The honey badger of Australia should not be admitting publicly that she's into Billy Joel,
00:34:22.820
but okay. So, but here's the filmmaker. Let me tell you the story. So my wife, unfortunately,
00:34:30.280
sleeps very, very early. It's a miracle if she could be awake past 8.30 at night. And so pretty much
00:34:37.920
after 8.30 at night, I'm on my own. And one of those lonely nights, I'm flipping and I find a movie,
00:34:45.080
an Australian movie. Now I'm telling the story of how I hooked up with that film director. And the
00:34:50.940
movie is called Cut Snake. Have you heard that? Have you heard that? Yes, I have. Yes. Have you seen it?
00:34:56.940
No, of course not. Oh, it's fantastic. And so I watched this movie. I think it's absolutely
00:35:03.600
brilliant. And so I just decide I'm going to... And this is probably eight, nine years ago. I'm just
00:35:08.980
going to reach out to the guy, the filmmaker, and have him on the show. So he's the other Australian.
00:35:15.280
His name is Tony Ayres. A-Y-R-E-S. Is he at all? Is he a household name?
00:35:21.120
The name is very familiar. Look, I thought you might've been going to say Russell Crowe,
00:35:25.860
but no, Tony Ayres. He's close. He's close. I'm going to look him up now. If you have an
00:35:31.400
interest in him, then he must be pretty special. So I'm going to look him up.
00:35:34.040
Oh, you're very sweet. Well, but I'm glad you said Russell Crowe, because I have here,
00:35:37.820
I prepared a list before we came on. What is going on with Australia? Some of these,
00:35:41.880
I didn't even know where Australia, most of them I did. You, Jackman,
00:35:46.040
Guy Pearce, whom I love as an actor, but I found out he's a bit on the walkster side.
00:35:51.140
That kind of pissed me off, but I really do love him. For example, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,
00:35:56.120
one of my favorite movies of all time. Wow, that surprises me. I would never have picked that.
00:36:02.060
Yes. See, I'm socially liberal too, Madame Honey Badger.
00:36:08.060
Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, but let me tell you when, I don't like Nicole Kidman of now.
00:36:13.360
Nicole Kidman of 1992, flirting. Have you ever seen that movie?
00:36:19.180
No, of course I haven't. I need to. Put it on the list.
00:36:24.600
No, no, she wasn't. I've never met her. Of course, if she met me, she'd flirt with me,
00:36:28.520
because it's just natural to fall under the sway of the Lebanese lover. Exactly.
00:36:32.380
But no, I haven't met her. Mel Gibson, well, you know, he's Australian. Tony Collette,
00:36:37.440
Russell Crowe. And here's one that I only recently found out she, I was surprised that
00:36:41.300
she could carry such an American accent. Sarah Snook.
00:36:46.580
He's amazing. So what is going on that small country in terms of population, not in terms of,
00:36:52.820
you know, size? How are you guys generating so many top artists? What's going on?
00:36:58.700
Yeah, it's a great question. And it's, I think you look at, and look, we steal some of them.
00:37:06.900
Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand, but whatever. We only kind of steal one.
00:37:13.960
No, of course not. No, it's not a real island. I adore New Zealand. The Prime Minister is a good
00:37:18.460
friend of mine. Hello. You are wonderful people. But I think it's, you know, I think it's this
00:37:24.380
passion and this drive that we have and this overcoming the odds mentality. I mean, you talked
00:37:30.060
about the kind of animals that we face day to day in this country. Like I can't walk to the mailbox
00:37:36.500
without a kangaroo trying to kill me. You know, it's intense. So when you learn to survive in this
00:37:42.520
jungle that is Australia, when you go to somewhere like Hollywood, you're like, oh God, is this it?
00:37:47.900
Oh, ages. Oh, no, that's nothing. You know, I've got this. So I think we have this mentality where
00:37:52.760
nothing is ever too hard and we try. And I, you know, I'm not a Hollywood superstar by any
00:37:58.040
stretch of the imagination, but even from my first ever job in TV, I went to an audition.
00:38:02.500
I was hopeless. I was so bad. I had to read an autocue. I was 20 years old. I left knowing that
00:38:08.160
I was horrific. But once a week for six months, I sent an email to the boss of that community TV
00:38:13.800
station and said, I know that I was awful, but please give me a shot. Please give me a shot. No reply
00:38:18.000
for six months. It was almost six months to the day he rang me and he said, if I give you a two
00:38:22.900
minute segment on the food show, will you leave me the fuck alone? Absolutely. And that was my first
00:38:30.200
taste of not being particularly talented, but just annoying the shit out of someone until they gave
00:38:35.260
me a shot. And I think that's, that's a kind of mentality that we have in Australia and same as,
00:38:40.320
you know, being smaller and less powerful than a lot of other countries. But gosh, we, you know,
00:38:46.780
in different conflicts, when we would go to war with our allies, we more than carried our weight
00:38:51.500
and then some, you know, I think we're a country that punches above our weight in many ways.
00:38:56.140
Russell Crowe is actually, he's a good friend of mine and we've played tennis a few times.
00:39:01.600
Myself and another friend of mine play against him and his girlfriend, Britt. And I tell you what,
00:39:06.960
if you think he's competitive in the film space, you watch him play tennis. Crazy.
00:39:15.020
Wow. All right. I'm looking at the time because I know that you have a flight or trip coming. So we
00:39:21.940
only have about two or three minutes. This is a question that's become part of sort of the setup
00:39:28.320
here on the show. And it stems from the fact that when I wrote my last book, I wrote a book on
00:39:33.120
happiness towards the end of the book. I talk about, you know, how to hopefully live a life where when
00:39:38.400
you look back, you don't face many regrets. And so the regret question has become a staple of the show.
00:39:43.780
So let me set it up for you. So there are two types of regret that most people think about.
00:39:48.560
They think about regret due to action. So I regret that my marriage ended because I cheated on my
00:39:55.200
wife. So I did something and that caused regret versus regret due to inaction. I regret that I
00:40:00.680
never became an architect and decided to go in the military because my dad was pushing me to go into
00:40:06.140
the military. Right now, it turns out, Aaron, that over the long run, when you ask people to look back
00:40:11.120
at their lives, the most looming regret is one of inaction. So you're still a young woman. So
00:40:17.560
you have a lot more life to live. But if I were to ask you today, what is your greatest source of
00:40:23.120
regret? Would you be kind enough to share it with us? Absolutely. I don't think I've ever really been
00:40:29.780
asked this question. I was thinking about it. I know that you do ask this at the end. And I think
00:40:36.400
it definitely falls into that inaction space. And it's if my father ever heard me say something like
00:40:44.680
this, or if I had heard myself say two years ago, say something like this, I would have said you are
00:40:49.520
absolutely kidding. I'm a 41 year old single mother who did therapy for the first time last year. I
00:40:57.840
actually sat down with the most incredible psychologist and I, my dad was a major general
00:41:02.340
in the army. He was a blokey bloke, six foot six, this warrior. You know, I'd say, love you,
00:41:07.300
daddy. Like, goodbye, Aaron. Like, you know, we don't talk about feelings. We are, we were never a
00:41:13.880
family that ever talked about feelings, mental health, whatever. But last year I gave when dad
00:41:18.360
was dying, he looked at me and he kept me in the room. My siblings had all had all left. And he said,
00:41:24.900
and I thought he was going to say, you're my favorite, you know, you're my hero. And he said,
00:41:29.180
you look awful. And I kind of went, wow, you know, like for starters, I'm losing the most
00:41:35.760
important person in my life. So I'm not going to look that crash hot. But I actually then started
00:41:40.600
to think about what he meant. And I was so miserable in so many ways. I had no peace in my
00:41:46.940
life. I was constantly anxious. I was on edge. I just was this chaotic mess. I'd never spoken about
00:41:53.560
things that had happened to me. I'd never healed. And I never thought I'd be someone who would use the
00:41:57.320
word healed. I'd never done any of that. As I left the room, my siblings and mum were waiting
00:42:01.340
outside. And they're like, what did he say? And I said, well, he told me I look awful and I'm the
00:42:05.340
hot one. So you guys are screwed. In you go. But what I thought my gift to my dad would be
00:42:11.200
was to do some therapy because he was right. I was, I was, when I smiled, it wasn't genuine.
00:42:17.680
There was nothing genuinely happy about me. I had this facade of happiness and joy. And so I did
00:42:23.080
therapy and it changed everything about my life and I don't do it. I get one year and I now text
00:42:29.300
my psychologist if I'm having an off day, but it changed my existence. And I, even as a mother,
00:42:34.220
I've always, I thought been an incredible mother. I love my daughter more than life itself,
00:42:38.100
but I look back at the first four or five years of her life and I was there, but I was never present
00:42:44.780
because my mind was so conflicted and chaotic and traumatized. And so, so my one regret is that I
00:42:51.840
didn't do it 20 years ago, but it's also brought me here. It's also brought me to this place now
00:42:58.420
where what I used to think was happiness is not even close. So my ability to appreciate this new
00:43:05.360
found peace, even in the midst of lots of chaos, I learned how to be okay with peace. And beforehand
00:43:11.480
I wasn't. And I saw this thing, people go to therapy to learn how to deal with hard times. No,
00:43:16.500
no, my, my life has been full of hard times. I am the greatest dealer of hard times in the history
00:43:22.280
of the world. You, you name it. I, people would say badge of honor, you cope, you get back up,
00:43:26.400
you do it. What I couldn't do was live with peace. And when I would find peace, I would create chaos
00:43:31.720
because I didn't know how to live with peace. Now I worked really hard and it was brutal and she was
00:43:36.940
bloody brutal, called me out. She was awful, but she taught me how to live with peace. So my one regret
00:43:42.860
would be that I didn't do it earlier, but I think in some ways it's also given me the greatest
00:43:47.760
appreciation and gratitude for the fact that I've done it now. So as a final message, anyone,
00:43:53.240
even if you don't feel like you have problems, seeing someone could be the greatest gift you
00:43:58.880
ever give, not just yourself, but your children and the people you love. And yeah, that's what I
00:44:03.060
would leave you with. Wow. What, I mean, I wish we had more time because there's so much follow-up I
00:44:07.580
could, I could hit you with what an incredibly honest and refreshing answer. Thank you so much.
00:44:11.860
Stay on the line so we could say goodbye offline. Please come back anytime you want. And hopefully
00:44:17.240
we'll see each other in Australia really soon. Thank you so much, Erin.
00:44:20.900
I can't wait. Thank you so much. It's such an honor to join you and thank you for the incredible
00:44:24.480
work that you do. And if I could just finish by saying, people often stop me and say, particularly
00:44:29.740
men and say, I would love my daughter or my child to feel the way about me that you feel about your dad.
00:44:35.560
That is my hope. I'm so inspired by that. I look at you, speak about him and it just,
00:44:40.620
that's what I want. And I know having seen so much of your work that your daughter and your
00:44:45.520
children would think exactly the same way. And you should be immensely proud because as they get
00:44:51.060
off, they understand how hard it is and how much it matters. And you should just feel incredibly proud
00:44:56.800
because I know they would. Wow. I'm speechless. Thank you so much, Erin. Talk to you soon. Stay on the line.