{"id":2337,"date":"2022-08-24T12:28:26","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T02:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/?p=2337"},"modified":"2022-08-25T10:14:38","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T00:14:38","slug":"lets-talk-about-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/lets-talk-about-politics","title":{"rendered":"Let’s talk about politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your palms get sweaty when the subject of politics comes up at the dinner table, you\u2019re not alone. Politics can be dry, complex and in some cases confronting. But two journalists, Justine Landis-Hanley and Elfy Scott, are working to change that perception and make politics more accessible through their podcast, Left Right Out<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Each week the duo publishes episodes based on questions that have been asked by their listeners, from understanding the Federal budget to unpicking which party is best on climate change and why housing in Australia is so expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of the podcast for us is to provide young people, particularly young women, with a space that answers their questions about politics in a non-judgemental\u00a0way,\u201d founder Justine says. \u201c[We want] to\u00a0empower them with the information that they need to not only go to voting day and vote for a party or person that they like, but more broadly to be able to engage in conversations around politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, if we can convince one person that they\u2019re entitled to care about politics\u00a0and\u00a0to speak up about things that matter to them, then I think we\u2019ve succeeded,\u201d co-host Elfy\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

Justine and Elfy both have an impressive track record of making information accessible and entertaining. Justine is also a researcher\u00a0for one of Australia\u2019s biggest podcasts, Shameless<\/em>, while Elfy is working on her first book and is best known for hosting the daily news show, The Junkee Takeaway<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The duo takes turns to research the\u00a0content for each episode and use pop culture references to explain complex\u00a0political situations and relationships, such as movie references to understand negative gearing. \u201cWe have tried to foster an environment\u00a0where you can ask anything, and I say that as somebody who\u00a0entered\u00a0newsrooms five years ago
\nand didn\u2019t know much about politics,\u201d\u00a0Elfy says. \u201cEven if\u00a0questions might sound simplistic to\u00a0you, very often they\u2019ll have
\na complex\u00a0and\u00a0interesting answer. Hopefully we can build this safe space and encourage people to ask those\u00a0questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the pair first started recording in February this year, they were worried that no one would message in with questions. But they have been inundated with questions from the get-go, especially about women\u2019s rights, climate change<\/a> issues and each political party\u2019s ins and outs.<\/p>\n

Justine and Elfy describe it as democratising journalism \u2014 letting the audience decide what topics to cover and what\u2019s written. \u201cThey are questions I don\u2019t see answered a lot when I open the papers, and so I think that it is a really important, democratic role we are filling,\u201d Justine says. \u201cThe point in following these things is that politicians are literally working for us. The money we earn and pay in taxes not only pays for their job, it pays for all the projects and all the work that they do. It\u2019s really, really important that we keep an eye on what our employees are doing, and make sure that they\u2019re working for us and not working for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Federal politics being heavily featured in Australia\u2019s daily news cycle, several polls have found Australia is largely tuned out of it. Data from Ipsos revealed that while interest in politics has risen during the pandemic, most Australians are not interested in the outcomes of the political process or don\u2019t expect any outcomes at all.<\/p>\n

Justine, who has also worked as a political advisor, says politics isn\u2019t designed to be easy to understand. In fact, it\u2019s advantageous for politicians to be vague. \u201cPolitics is as much an exercise in democracy as it is in public relations and marketing, and we need to be wary,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s much better in those situations for people to fully understand what is being sold to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The difficulties in understanding politics also come down to a lack of representation in parliament, according to Elfy. \u201cFrom my perspective, being a person of colour, I think that politics has shut out and marginalised people just by virtue of those who run our country and what they look like,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that it benefits politicians because it means that marginalised communities can\u2019t speak up for themselves and can\u2019t assert issues that might lead to further equality. It maintains the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to gender in politics, Australia has never achieved equal representation in the Federal parliament. Currently, about 38 per cent of politicians are women. \u201cWe know that there are problems when it comes to gender representation in politics,\u201d says Justine. \u201cWe also know that men are much more likely to speak even when they know less\u00a0about\u00a0issues,\u00a0and women are more likely to hold their opinions back if they feel even the tiniest bit uneducated on an issue. And I think politics, much like other areas\u00a0such as maths\u00a0and\u00a0science, has so often been\u00a0wrongly characterised as a men\u2019s topic.\u201d<\/p>\n

It starts with women feeling as though they can be engaged in the conversation and feel educated and entitled to speak about\u00a0politics with anyone around them, according to Elfy. \u201cIt\u2019s just about getting your foot in the door and building that sense that you can participate,\u201d she says. \u201cUltimately, I think if people do feel that sense of empowerment, then maybe they\u2019ll feel that sense of empowerment to represent others or manage people or take up\u00a0positions of leadership. It really starts with a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simone Ziaziaris is a freelance journalist from Sydney who loves writing about the arts, sustainability and human rights. When she isn\u2019t at her computer typing, she is out and about taking film photos. Take a sneak peek at her work @simoneziaziaris on Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your palms get sweaty when the subject of politics comes up at the dinner table, you\u2019re not alone. Politics can be dry, complex and in some cases confronting. But two journalists, Justine Landis-Hanley and Elfy Scott, are working to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":2338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264,104],"tags":[342,304],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337\/revisions\/2339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}