Watching Monday night's Q&A;, you could be forgiven for thinking Penny Wong was more than a little fed up. And you could hardly blame her. Australia's determined embrace of a permanent political groundhog day is starting to wear thin on even the most patient among us.
On this, the Labor senator's 16th appearance on the program in its nine years on air, the subject matter likely served as a reminder that should she stay in public life, this may be her lot forever more: remaining calm and defending her corner as Tony Jones referees yet another round in the nation's endless debate over the many things it would apparently prefer to debate endlessly than actually resolve.
More Entertainment Videos
- Video duration
- 01:19
Q&A;: Wong says Hanson peddles prejudice, fear
- Video duration
- 01:31
Will & Grace: election special
- Video duration
- 00:46
Security guard steals Brownlow thunder
- Video duration
- 01:58
Q&A;: Birmo admits private schools over-funded
- Video duration
- 03:32
Entertainment news highlights
- Video duration
- 01:12
Highest-paid TV actors of 2016
- Video duration
- 01:09
Olivia Newton-John's pain
- Video duration
- 01:44
Australian World Orchestra comes home
Q&A;: Wong says Hanson peddles prejudice, fear
Labor leader in the Senate Penny Wong believes One Nation leader Pauline Hanson's views "will never build a community, they will only tear one apart". Vision courtesy ABC.
Exhibit A: racism, and the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise of Wong's new senate counterpart, Pauline Hanson. A questioner wanted to know: how could Wong say Hanson "peddles prejudice" when polls showed large numbers of Australians agreed with the One Nation leader's views?
Wong didn't dally in dispatching this inquiry over the boundary.
"How can I argue that Pauline Hanson peddles prejudice and fear? Because I look at what she says. I remember the debate in the '90s, when we were the ones who were swamping Australia, and we were the ones who were going to make this a dreadful place," she said.
"Yes, she is elected, she has her seat in the Senate. And she's entitled to speak, but those of us who have very different views are also entitled to speak."
And for good measure, she questioned the "enormous focus" given to Hanson's right to speak. What about "the right of Muslim Australians to not be vilified? Maybe leaders should start talking about that".
It was Wong's first "mic drop" moment of the night, but not her last. Later came this: "This issue – I'm really tired of talking about it. I'd just like to get it done."
Cue applause. Wong could have been talking about half a dozen different things that continue to distract the nation – climate change and energy policy; asylum seekers; education reform, the list goes on – but the matter to hand was that other hardy perennial, same-sex marriage.
The rest of the world may have long moved on, but not us, as Penny Wong knows better than most.
Hark back, if you will, to July 31, 2008 – Q&A;'s first year on the air – a simpler time, pre-GFC, when the nation's leaders still had that new-car smell and we still had a new-car industry. Wong was on the panel that night, as was Malcolm Turnbull, Version 1.0, then still six weeks away from his first attempt at puzzling the hell of out of the Liberal Party as its federal leader.
As Q&A; records the occasion on its website: "In light of the fact that Malcolm has a large gay representation in his electorate and Penny is Australia's first declared gay cabinet minister, the panel was asked about their position on same-sex marriage … Malcolm and Penny both argued their party's positions, that marriage is a permanent union between a man and a woman." It goes on: "Penny said that her personal perspective was not relevant."
That was Wong's first visit to the Q&A; panel. Across her 15 subsequents visits, there has barely been an evening when she has not been asked some variation on the question. Her answer has become simpler since being liberated from an obligation to defend her party's noxious dithering on the issue, but our collective dithering continues.
"What on earth are we doing?" wondered South Australian Labor premier Jay Weatherill last night in supporting a free parliamentary vote over a plebiscite.
Former federal senator Amanda Vanstone declared that were she still in Parliament, she'd vote for equality – but added the plebiscite promise was sacrosanct, just like a bet on the horses. Labor was trying to diddle the bookies. "I sometimes bet on the Melbourne Cup … [if] another horse beat my horse by a nose, I wouldn't expect to say, well, I want half the winnings. I lost."
Liberal senator Simon Birmingham noted his long-standing bona fides on marriage equality, but told Wong: "Penny, you've got the opportunity now to see this issue resolved … my concern now is even if the Parliament rail-roaded it through it would be such a controversial issue we wouldn't stop talking about the issue, because we built up this expectation that Australians get to have their say on it."
Vanstone and Birmingham have a point. It is true the Coalition went to the election with a plebiscite as its policy – or, more accurately, with a vague promise that it would oversee a wondrous democratic pageant in which Australia would parade the better angels of its gay-rights-loving nature for the world. But then, one might also argue that this was a policy pledge so devoid of detail it was like promising a child a show pony for Christmas and then sending them to live with Christopher Pyne.
As Wong put it: "I know Canberra seems like a spaceship at times but it's not. And we are all elected and we all respond to the community and I think we should be putting the pressure on. I think we should be saying we don't want a plebiscite that was dreamt up by Cory Bernardi and the Australian Christian Lobby who will never agree with marriage equality."
In emphasising her "get it done" message, Wong did not lose her cool; she never does. But if we're still talking about this after her next 16 Q&A; appearances, you'd have to think all bets are off.