Good evening. Welcome to Q&A. I'm Tony Jones. Answering your questions tonight: journalist and author David Marr; award-winning stage and film actress Jacki Weaver; celebrated Australian writer, satirist and actor Barry Humphries; English actress and champions of Dickens' women Miriam Margolyes; and former leader of the Liberal Party John Hewson. Please welcome our panel.

Right. Q&A is live from 9:35 eastern standard time and simulcast on News 24 and New Radio. Go to our website to send a question or join the Twitter conversation using the hash tag that just appeared on your screen. Our first question comes from Herb Ladley.

FOREIGN WORKERS

HERB LADLEY: I'm a foreign worker living in this country on a temporary resident visa. Australia seems to welcome people like me and even European backpackers who do unskilled work yet there is now an outcry about Asian workers coming to fill a critical labour shortage. Is this an economic issue or a race issue and has this country really gotten beyond the White Australia Policy?

TONY JONES: David Marr, let's start with you??

DAVID MARR: We have a long lingering inheritance of the White Australia Policy and it most clearly shows itself in the wish that we have a peculiarly controlled notion of who can come in and out of this country. Border control, border protection, all of that stuff is an expression in this day and age of an old race fear and the notion is that Australians will very, very carefully select who comes into this country so they might not be quite white but at least they'll be kind of one of us. Now, I'm burlesquing it, of course, as I say that but that's roughly where we are. That's why boat people...

TONY JONES: So David, are you suggesting that the union leaders who are against these workers are sort of coming up with a new thought: we'll decide which workers come into this country and the manner in which they come?

DAVID MARR: There's always been a fear of cheap, coloured labour coming into this country. It goes back to the 1820s and it's still around. And, of course, it's not vicious in the way it once was but there are still signs of it there. I think, in fact, the workers who are going to be flooding into this country over the next few years are going to come from Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain and we will welcome them with open arms. But the fear and how people are actually greeted once they come here are two different things. We're a contradictory country.

TONY JONES: Jacki Weaver?

JACKI WEAVER: It didn't occur to me that they were going to be Asians. I thought the problem was that they thought it was putting Australians out of work. But the fact of the matter is a lot of the eastern Australian Australians who are out of work don't want to go all the way to Western Australia, do they?

DAVID MARR: It's a long way.

JACKI WEAVER: I can't bear to think that it's racist thing, surely not after all this time.

TONY JONES: Barry Humphries, you have any thought s on this?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Very few, I must say but, you know, I wouldn't want to be in those mines. Are they open cut mines or do you go...

TONY JONES: Many of them are these days, yes. Most of them are.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Oh, well, it is a long way away but is...

DAVID MARR: I can see you in one of trucks, though?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Is this something to do with Gina Rinehart I wonder? I mean, she's involved, isn't she?

JACKI WEAVER: It's her mine.

TONY JONES: Yes, she's built a very big mine or is building a very, very big mine, the biggest iron ore mine in the world in history.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, I hope she can, after all that's over, she can afford a hairdresser. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

TONY JONES: We have to be very careful about going down that path on this program.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Oh, do you? I'm sorry.

TONY JONES: Germaine Grier had a bit of a moment! Miriam Margoyles?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Margolyes, please.

TONY JONES: Margolyes, I beg your pardon.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I want to be an Australian and I can quite understand why everybody else does too. I know you've got to be a bit picky. I hope you will let this old Jewish lesbian in!

TONY JONES: As long as you don't take any work from manufacturing workers.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I don't think I'm much good in overalls actually but I think it's a perfectly serious question and I think there is a racist streak in some Australians and a very generous streak in others and I hope the generous streak overcomes the other once. These are tough times and it's natural for people to be frightened they're losing their jobs. Stop being frightened. Let people in to work. It will be a better country for it.

TONY JONES: John Hewson?

JOHN HEWSON: I have nothing to add to that. That answer's excellent.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Oh, thank you.

TONY JONES: Well, let me ask you this then: what did you make of Paul Howse, the union leader, his rhetorical statement that aren't we meant to be fighting Gina Rinehart?

JOHN HEWSON: Well, I think there's a political argument there obviously. I mean the Government has spent months attacking the Opposition for being too close to those, you know, powerful individuals in Australia but, you know, I think he was more trying to strike a chord with the union membership on the east coast, which is - many of which have lost their jobs and he's just, I think, seeking support but realistically, as Barry said, very few of them are going to want to move from the east coast to the west coast, even with very attractive salaries.

TONY JONES: Let's go back to the thrust of the question that was asked earlier on this issue. Is it just about economics or is it racially charged?

JOHN HEWSON: Well, I think it is essentially about economics but there is always an element in Australia, as I think David said, you know, you can - you don't have to scratch too hard and you do raise a racist sentiment at times.

TONY JONES: Yeah, we mentioned Gina Rinehart before. There's a Facebook question...

(BARRY HUMPHRIES MOBILE PHONE RINGS)

TONY JONES: Barry's just going to deal with his phone. That 's probably your agent just wondering if it's a very good joke!

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Hello. It's an awkward moment. I'm on live television. I'll ring back soon. Sorry.

HIS HONOUR: Okay. Now, that was clearly...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I don't know how to switch these things off.

TONY JONES: We'll leave that with Jackie. I'm sure people have managed it.

DAVID MARR: You know Berlusconi took a call on his mobile phone when he was having an audience the Pope? It just beats that.

TONY JONES: Okay, I suspect that was actually...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I'm sorry. So sorry.

FOREIGN WORKERS

TONY JONES: No. No. I'm sure it was someone just ringing up with a question. In fact we've got a Facebook question. It's from Emelia Starbright: "Why is Gina Rinehart so greedy?" Let's throw that to David Marr.

DAVID MARR: Well, I think it's a personal question, isn't it, really? Yes, she's the richest woman in the world and she's humiliating herself and her family in the courts in order not to have to pay her children the money that is pouring into the estate so that she can control it and dole it out exactly as she wants. This is amazingly perverse behaviour but, as I understand it, behind it all lies this towering ambition to fund, in her own right, to get up this immense iron ore mine and for that she seems to be willing to appear as greedy as all get out. She's willing to appear brutally cruel to her own family and so she goes. There is a funny way in which huge amounts of money in some people don't actually sate the appetite but make them crave more. It's something about us human beings.

TONY JONES: I'm just contemplating the fact that we managed to get through the global financial crisis because people like Gina Rinehart took risks and built mines and those mines have kept our economy afloat. Do you still consider that - building that mine to be greedy or evidence of greed?

DAVID MARR: Our economy was not kept afloat by mining after the GFC. Our economy was kept afloat because of the cash injections that were thrown into it by the Government and by Treasury. Mining actually employs a remarkably few number of people in Australia and the capital...

TONY JONES: But it injects a massive amount of capital and resources into the country.

DAVID MARR: Tony, I'm not saying that it's not inconsiderable but there are ways of behaving when you are one of the richest people in the world with a little more grace than she behaves, particularly vis-Ã¯Â¿Â½-vis her own family and she appears to display a quite remarkable wish to control every cent that goes through her hands.

TONY JONES: Barry Humphries, looking at these mining billionaires that have taken such a huge space on the Australian stage, if you can put it that way, what are your thoughts?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I'm unspoilt by wealth. It doesn't necessarily distort the character. Greed to me is one of the least of the vices and I am not drawn to Gina. I mean, if I woke up in a motel with her on the next pillow I would...

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: You'd be very surprised, I think.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Very surprised. But then I don't like her family very much either. I mean, they all deserve each other in my view and what she does with her money is really her own affair. She is putting it back in some way or digging it up or whatever she's doing. Again, it's very long way away, isn't it?

DAVID MARR: Barry, this show goes live to Western Australia.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Oh, Western Australia.

DAVID MARR: Where you've often performed quite successfully to date.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Is that Perth, as well?

DAVID MARR: Yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, in that case...

TONY JONES: Barry, I know that you are about to go on the road again and so I was actually wondering if characters like Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer who is, of course, another billionaire who is building a replica of the Titanic at the moment, if these people might in fact figure in some way...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: These people in Perth are wonderful. There's a mine of people bigger than the one that Gina is digging, the characters in Perth are unbelieve a replica of the Titanic? It's too good to be true.

TONY JONES: Well, actually, that particular builder is from Queensland rather than Perth but not to...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Queensland is really the West Australia of the north.

TONY JONES: Can I bring in Jacki Weaver, who probably does know who we're talking about?

JACKI WEAVER: I think we were getting a bit unkind about Mrs Rinehart. I think I'd like to take another tack and it's so unimaginable $29 billion. When I was little do you remember a billion dollars was a million million but now it's a thousand million?

DAVID MARR: Everything's getting smaller.

JACKI WEAVER: But that's link winning 29 million dollars in Powerball 1,000 times. It's kind of - it's unimaginable, isn't it? And if you had that much money you'd get such pleasure giving it away, wouldn't you?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Oh, I don't think so. I sort of measure money in jokes. You know, if I buy something for my children I tell them, you know, well that was a thousand jokes. That's the number of jokes I had to tell to get that money, pay the tax on it.

TONY JONES: That's quite a fascinating insight because Picasso used to draw pictures to pay at restaurants. Do you do the same sort of thing?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, not in restaurants, no, but it's a good idea.

TONY JONES: You don't tell jokes to the waiter and hope they'll forgive you the bill.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It never happened, no.

TONY JONES: Miriam, I think we were talking about Gina Rinehart.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: It's very difficult, isn't it, because poor woman she is not a beauty and I am not a beauty either so I know what it's like to be fat and ugly and having money makings it easier, I imagine. What troubles me about her is that she is not generous. I think it's fine to be as rich as you possibly can be but you've got to be generous. You've got to be aware of people who are less fortunate and give a lot of it away. I do. I'm absolutely wonderful like that but she isn't and I think she's got to...

TONY JONES: No, I'd have to say as an artist you might appreciate this. She did actually give the gift of a poem on a giant piece of iron ore.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Well, that's remarkable, isn't it? No, I don't really know very much about Gina Rinehart but what I know I don't care for.

TONY JONES: John Hewson, someone better stick up for her.

JOHN HEWSON: You want me to follow all that?

TONY JONES: Well, I think perhaps you should anchor this discussion in some way.

JOHN HEWSON: Look, I find it very difficult to judge people like Gina Rinehart. Indeed, I find it very difficult to understand people like Gina Rinehart but I can see what she's trying to do in terms of building this mine. I don't excuse the way she's doing it. I just don't understand it.

TONY JONES: You don't understand doing it in the way that she's doing it?

JOHN HEWSON: Well, just, you know, the greed you're drawing attention to in relation to her children, in relation to giving to charity or whatever, I mean, it's a choice she's made but I don't personally understand it. I think you have a responsibility in this country to put a bit back beyond what you've taken out.

TONY JONES: Okay, we're going to move on. You're watching Q&A, live, unpredictable and rather wonderful tonight. The next question comes from Alison Roberts-Brown.

OZ POLITICS

ALISON ROBERTS-BROWN: I've been away from Australia for about 23 years and that's just long enough to completely disconnect from Australian politics but coming back I've found the politicians tend to be really robotic and they're speaking from a script and as, Barry Humphries, to quote you, "Nothing is called what it is anymore." I've watched TV a number of times, political addresses and actually thought I was watching a spoof or a sendup and just wanted to address the question to Barry Humphries, when you come back to Australia what are the marked differences that you see in how our politics is being played out?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I think the wonderful thing about Australia is that it never changes at all. I've been called an expatriate, which is really quite insulting because what it means is traitor. That's what it means and even people who should know better have accused me in the press and on television of going and living abroad and then coming back and saying rude things about Australia. It's tiresome but it still goes on. But I come back and it's really like a kind of show, a comedy show. Our politics is wonderfully entertaining, if it wasn't sad at the same time and I remember very well, because I'm old enough to remember, that the worst thing that ever happened in this country was the broadcasting of Parliament. People were horrified for the first time to hear the voices of our politicians. People said, oh, but they're so common. Of course that's the good thing about Australia, that it is common. There's an old joke in Punch, the humorous periodical, where two people, two men meet on a street corner and one says, "I say, old boy, are you an Australian?" and the other says, "No, just common." But I can't say much more except...

TONY JONES: That's almost enough for an Australian editorial just on its own.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It is.

TONY JONES: Yes, I think so. What is it you find sad when you watch Australian politics, because that seemed to be the overwhelming...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: We're in the hands of these people. They're sort of running our lives and they're so uninteresting. That's the worst thing about it.

JACKI WEAVER: They're not all bad.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: No, the ones who win are not very nice, are they? There are some good ones on the back benches I suppose, or who have retired from politics, like John.

JACKI WEAVER: I love Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Do you?

JACKI WEAVER: I think they're gorgeous but you're right, a lot of them do talk in that robotic spin. Occasionally there's someone dreadful who doesn't talk in that spin but says the most appalling things like what's that senator: Bill Homophobe?

DAVID MARR: Heffernan?

JACKI WEAVER: That's the one.

DAVID MARR: Would it be Heffernan? Yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: So few of them have had jobs. They haven't worked at anything, have they?

TONY JONES: That's not strictly true. There's a lot of lawyers.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Yes, I know what kind of work they do. Matrimonial lawyers, at any rate. But...

TONY JONES: Have you been watching question time to gather material for the new show, just out of interest?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I have sometimes but, I mean, I couldn't rival question time. I should get...

TONY JONES: As a piece of satire, you mean?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: As a piece of satire it is unique and totally satisfying and very, very funny. But, as I say, there's a rather tragic dimension to this. These people are it's power they're interested in, isn't it? It's power and I don't like people who are interested in power.

TONY JONES: Miriam - well, actually, let's go to someone who was interested in power that just sort of eluded your grasp, I must say, John Hewson. Your thoughts about current politics? I mean listening to this, I mean, it's reflected obviously on this panel but on many other panels that we've had and in the audience, among questioners, has something become degraded about what's going on in politics and, if so, how has that happened?

JOHN HEWSON: Well, essentially they're trying to win the 24 hour media cycle and so everyone is repeating the same sort of messages from each side because, as they say, they're staying on message. They're keeping their message focussed and saying very little and certainly not governing the country.

TONY JONES: Miriam, do you have any thoughts? I mean you want to become an Australian. Are you watching what's going on here?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I do watch what's going on and I do think that there's a certain puniness about all politicians around the world, actually. I'm looking at my own country, England, which is, you know, bereft of intelligence at the top. I like Julia Gillard. I think she's fascinating and because I'm on the left I would support her anyway. I can't bear the other little fellow and I have the pleasure of knowing Bob Hawke. I know he wasn't your favourite chap.

JOHN HEWSON: No, he was.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: But I thought he was just ravishing and there's nobody quite like him now and I think I would have loved somebody like that in Parliament.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: But you are a lesbian, you know?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Well, it's not final.

TONY JONES: You haven't been forced to write that on your citizenship papers, have you?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: No. No. And I hope I won't have to.

TONY JONES: David, just reflect on this slightly mad conversation we're having?

DAVID MARR: Well, it's a lot more entertaining than question time, I reckon. Yes, everybody is robotic, the messages are written before dawn, they're handed out on little slips of paper, everybody has to repeat them all the day. The other day the message was how can the Prime Minister be trusted in anything when she then just, sort of, you know, add. The battering rams of the Opposition keep going and the Labor Party is, you know, along the battlements pouring excrement and hot pitch down on the invading troops and every single day it is the same, it is the same and the Australian people do not like it. They do not like it. They are sick of it. But the politicians, who we have put there, do not seem to be able to rise above it and I think it is going to grind its way on until the election at the end of next year and yet, oddly enough at the same time, the business of government goes on in this country. Laws are being passed. The government is governing and yet get every day or every sitting day all of these players come together once again to - what is it? It's kind of like mud wrestling with public consequences or something.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: And your economy is robust.

DAVID MARR: We're booming and yet we're in this...

TONY JONES: You could argue thanks to people like Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and others.

DAVID MARR: I don't think it's because of those two people. No, I think there are...

TONY JONES: Not solely, no, that's clearly the case.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: There are other reasons for it and I think it's something that Australians should be very proud of.

DAVID MARR: But they're not and that's a very, very successful political outcome that has been worked by the Opposition. Australians have been led to believe that they are on the lip of the cliff and that things in this country are appalling and we have, by the standards of the world, a miracle economy and yet in Australia the response to it is one of gloom and uncertainty. It's a political achievement of the first water. It is extraordinary.

TONY JONES: Let me just ask Barry this: when you come here, does it seem like you're living in a miracle economy.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, you say when I come here it's as though I just suddenly descend in a balloon. I'm here every year of my life for months at a time but not always publicly, you know. I'm disguised as other people and I'm pushing little trolleys in Woolworths doing ordinary things. Well, not so ordinary but prosaic things. And does it seem ... what?

TONY JONES: Does it seem, when you're pushing that shopping trolley in disguise, does it actually seem like you're in a miracle economy?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I feel as though I'm in a miracle economy. This place is extraordinarily wonderful, I think. Prosperous and I don't think a lot of people in Australia realise what a paradise it is. I don't know who is the architect of this. It's probably not Gina Rinehart but. It's us. We've made this a tremendous country and if Miriam Margolyes wants to be one of us, that's a pretty big compliment, I think.

TONY JONES: Okay, you're watching Q&A. Remember you can send your questions by video to our website. The address is on the screen to find out how to do that. Our next question is a video. It comes from James Manche in Dulwich Hill, New South Wales.

THOMSON- TIME TO LAY OFF?

JAMES MANCHE: Dr Hewson, you've been Opposition Leader. You know about the pressures of having to call the Government to account. What do you think of Tony Abbott's relentless pursuit of Craig Thomson and his claim that he should resign his seat and that he's not entitled to the presumption of innocence because he is guilty? Is it justice he seeks or is it power? Is it time to lay off and leave to it the courts?

TONY JONES: John Hewson?

JOHN HEWSON: Look, I think he's taking the obvious political opportunity that's been there to score points on the Government and Craig Thomson is the mechanism today by which he is doing that. I mean, if I look at what Craig Thomson has done, I mean I think Craig Thomson only has Craig Thomson to blame. He, one way or another, it's alleged has mishandled about half a million dollars worth of other people's money.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: And several women.

JOHN HEWSON: Perhaps, yes. I'm not sure mishandled but anyway.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Yes, that's true.

JOHN HEWSON: You know, I do think that there is a presumption of innocence but the electorate has made up its mind about this.

TONY JONES: Yes, I don't think, despite what the questioner says, I don't think Tony Abbott has actually said he does not have a presumption of innocence.

JOHN HEWSON: I was going to say, he hasn't said most of what was attributed to him there but the fact is I think the electorate has made up its mind and Craig is living with the consequences of the circumstances that he create and he keeps feeding it. He keeps appearing, making speeches and giving press interviews and, you know, I think the Opposition has done what you'd expect Opposition to do in this circumstances.

TONY JONES: Jacki Weaver, can I just get you to reflect on the Craig Thomson affair?

JACKI WEAVER: Whatever he's done or whatever he's supposed to have done, I feel sorry for him. Every time you see that anguished face, he looks like a very desperate person and I am I just hope he doesn't top himself. I think, you know, no matter what happens to you, nothing is worth doing that and he does look so full of anguish. I think we should also remember that while it's really wrong to purloin other people's money, it's perfectly legitimate to pay a sex worker for services rendered and I think that for...

TONY JONES: So Channel 9 certainly intends to do that.

JACKI WEAVER: Well, that's what I was going to say. For a television program to bribe a prostitute to breach the client confidentiality I think is unconscionable.

TONY JONES: David, just leave $60,000 on the bedside table?

DAVID MARR: What concerns me is what proof she will bring to the interview. Is there a mole? Is there some distinguishing mark that only she and he know about? It does disturb me how will we know about the bona fides of this woman? It is a remarkable life that she's leading. It appears that she got several hundred dollars for the act and she's going to get about 1,000 times that amount for talking about it, which I think once again proves that talking is a very virtuous and useful thing in life but, you know, I'm not sure that we need her. I'm not sure that we need her. I mean I don't want to, you know, go endlessly through the details of this but the Fairfax newspapers published the credit card slips and it was a union credit card that purchased sex and his signature is on the front and his licence number is on the back and the phone records prove that it was his phone that rang to make the bookings. Now, I don't myself think, and he has no explanation for any of this. I don't really think we need the testimony of the tart to tell us what happened that night but that would appear to be what is now going to happen and I can't help feeling that Thomson has brought this on his own head as well.

TONY JONES: Barry Humphries?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Thomson is a liar and a rat bag. No question of that and I deplore - and it's moving onto rather another theme a famous television network like Nine and their actions in paying a prostitute an amount of money like that to sort of sing like a canary, in the same way as another television program, well known television magazine program, door-stopped my friend Clive James.

JOHN HEWSON: Oh yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Quite recently.

JOHN HEWSON: It was outrageous.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: And produced some floozy and humiliated him in the street and they flew this woman across the world for this deplorable, disgraceful piece of television. Something serious is happening and there is a thing called the Press Council, which seems absolutely impotent. I mean all they did was tut, tut over that and, meanwhile, we have to put up with this fellow Craig Thomson, who admittedly looks devastated. So he should, I think.

DAVID MARR: He's not devastated enough to confess he did it.

TONY JONES: Can I interrupt because we've got a video question on the same subject. It's from Jack-James Baxter in Wollongong, NSW.

THOMSON - TIME TO LAY OFF?

JACK-JAMES BAXTER: My question is to Barry Humphries. Mr Humphries, due to the retirement of Sir Les Patterson, the Australian political landscape will miss the scandalous behaviours of the most popular senior Labor statesman. Do you think Craig Thomson could be the new Les Patterson of Australian politics?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, we'll have to find out what the girl has to say about him but I don't think he's got the build, do you, really? I've only seen him from the waist up but, I mean, look, he's not amusing enough. That's the trouble with him. He is not only a liar but he's a bore and we're all meant to feel sorry for him but thank you for that question because Les Patterson is really a very nice person and a dedicated politician. He is now anyway retired from politics and has become a celebrity chef. If you come along to my already sold out farewell show you'll see him in action.

TONY JONES: I mean just going back to one of the earlier questions, the kind of politicians upon which he was based, they don't seem to exist anymore. I mean...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: That's what they say. You haven't been to Queensland lately, have you? They exist. Of course they do. What about that fellow Palmer? Is his name Palmer?

TONY JONES: Clive Palmer, yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Clive Palmer is the reincarnation of Les Patterson.

JOHN HEWSON: He's got the build for it.

TONY JONES: He's the one who is building the Titanic, incidentally.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Yes, I'm not surprised. No, happily that sort of politician will always exist in Australia, you know?

TONY JONES: Yes. So the material is never ending is what you're saying?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It's never ending. It's just like the hole; Gina's hole.

TONY JONES: I'm sorry. It really is time to move along. You're watching Q&A. The next question comes from Steven Walker. Where is Steven?

SPEAKING OUT

STEVEN WALKER: Miriam, your fearlessness in speaking your mind is truly admirable. Has there ever been a time when it's got you into serious trouble and you wished that you had kept quiet instead?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I don't think it's ever got me in and thank you for the kind remarks. Some people say I should just shut up. I think it does cause difficulties when I speak about Israel because I'm Jewish and I'm very critical of Israel and that does get me into trouble. I'm going to London soon when I finish here at the Opera House and I'm doing my show in North London, which is a Jewish area and they're not going to enjoy it because of what I say but I have to tell the truth, don't I? I think you have to say what you think and be truthful.

TONY JONES: Jacki Weaver, let me bring you in here. Is there anything that you have regretted saying when speaking out?

JACKI WEAVER: Well, a long time ago I did some ads for a political party and the backlash, the hate mail was not only surprising, it was vicious and really distressing and it made me resolve way back then to shut my trap and not to talk about politics ever again. But I will tell you the best haters are the worst spellers, with no grasp of grammar.

TONY JONES: I don't know if it's apocryphal but is it true that you said you'd never vote for John Howard because you could never vote for someone who looked like Louis the Fly?

JACKI WEAVER: On reflection I think that was very unkind.

TONY JONES: On a far more serious note, though, I mean Cate Blanchett came across this phenomenon, when she did those climate change ads.

JACKI WEAVER: It was so unfair, yes.

TONY JONES: I'm just wondering whether actresses speaking out about politics, whether your experience has actually - has a broader context.

JACKI WEAVER: Well, you know, we're citizens too and some of us - look at Miriam. She's very politically aware. Why can't we say I mean these people are free to air their views. Why can't we? It's pretty basic, isn't it? I thought that the opprobrium that was heaped on Cate was so unfair when it was all good stuff she was talking about.

TONY JONES: David Marr?

DAVID MARR: I think...

TONY JONES: I'm sure you probably have never considered getting in trouble for speaking your mind.

DAVID MARR: Never. It's never happened and, you know, I push the envelope, I push the envelope and still I'm held in this envelope. It's never happened but the attacks on showbiz people for joining political debate are vicious and they're vicious because showbiz people joining political debates are important. They have clout. They're listened to. So when Cate Blanchett talks about global warming, the attacks on her were, in a sense, necessarily vicious because she's an influential figure in the community. They're unfair. They're unfair and the political purpose of the passionate attacks is to silence them. Jackie, they wanted you to shut up about politics and apart from one or two intemperate remarks about the looks of a former Prime Minister, they seem to have succeeded but that's what it's about and so Barry Humphries has not for many, many years publicly talked about his dedication to the teachings and beliefs of Trotsky. He has been entirely silent on the fact that he is an enthusiastic Trotskyite.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Or Genghis Khan.

DAVID MARR: No, you've let that slip once or twice but your affection for Trotsky, you've been silent on that since the '30s.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I've tried to keep silent since the '30s.

TONY JONES: Do you keep silent on politic? Because, I mean, it's said that you're actually politically conservative.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I am.

TONY JONES: Now, I haven't seen any particular evidence of that until now.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: No, and why should you? My political views are private and I think it's significant that most lovies, you know, actors and actresses, as they used to be called - actors or theatre technicians, whatever they're called now - are always on the left, aren't they? They are always on the left. You don't hear very many people who favour the other side.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: What about Mel Gibson?

TONY JONES: There is Mel Gibson.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: There is Mel Gibson and touchÃ¯Â¿Â½, Miriam.

TONY JONES: I don't suppose you'd identify yourself as being in his camp?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Mel Gibson but, you know, he's a fellow anti-Semite, you should sympathise with him and, you know, Miriam, whose wonderful show of Dickens' women is in Sydney on Thursday night at the Opera House - you mustn't miss it. It is incredible. It may not be mentioned again, so I am giving it a plug. You'll find North London Jews will be perfectly happy with what you have to say. There's a few anti-Semites amongst them, I can tell you.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: And understandably so.

TONY JONES: Barry, I'm just going to bring you back to your show because, as you say...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: No. No. No.

TONY JONES: ...Dame Edna is on going on the road. Evidently she's going to be ruminating, among other things, on climate change. So I'm just wondering...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Climate change, is she? Good. I've no idea what's going to talk about.

TONY JONES: According to the Bumps.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Who told you 24?

TONY JONES: Well, I read a thing that your publicist put out.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: That's helpful. Give it to me because I need to know what she is going to be discussing.

TONY JONES: If she were, what would she say?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I do know she's cut her children out of her will. Her immense fortune she is keeping for herself, even though she's been pumping a lot of money into the prostate lately. But...

TONY JONES: She has no thoughts...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Climate change? No, I don't...

TONY JONES: She has no thoughts on the carbon tax, on climate change...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Climate change.

TONY JONES: On the great issues that seem to be...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: She'll just make sure that the theatre is warm and comfortable.

TONY JONES: John Hewson, you've obviously spoken out a few times in your career. Ever regretted it?

JOHN HEWSON: Only about birthday cakes, I guess.

TONY JONES: Yeah.

JOHN HEWSON: No, look, I think Miriam is right. You've just got to say what you believe and be prepared to argue for it. It cost me an election but it was worth doing. I firmly believe that.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: What about President Obama, who has come out in favour of gay marriage?

TONY JONES: Dragged into the open by his vice president?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Is that how it was?

TONY JONES: Pretty much.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Afraid so.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Well, I wonder will it cost him in the election in America and would it here, for example? No, I don't think it would here because Australians are sensible. In England, where they're frightfully stupid, over 70% are against gay marriage in England. I, as it happens, since nobody's asked, I don't want to get married to my partner of 43 years but some people do and, you know, let them. It's another question, of course. I realise that.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: What wants to marry her then?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I don't know of anybody but if I find out...

TONY JONES: Okay. Let's just hope it's not Bob Hawke. I'd hate to see the competition. The next question is a video. It's from Newton Gatoff in Bentleigh East, Victoria.

AUSSIE MOJO

NEWTON GATOFF: G'day, mate. In a country where women are the richest in business and most powerful in politics, has the Aussie machismo lost its mojo on the international stage?

TONY JONES: Barry, that was question right out of the 1970s.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: And that man was really trying, wasn't he? Machismo?

TONY JONES: You don't have any thoughts about that?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I was so interested in the performance I didn't hear a word he said.

TONY JONES: I think the essence of it was there are too many powerful women in Australia for Australian males to express themselves in the same way as they have in the past. What do you think about that?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I don't think...

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Absolute bollocks.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It's ridiculous.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Ridiculous.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It's a silly question.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Really silly.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It comes from a man who living in a horrible suburb, by the way, Bentleigh. Bentleigh.

TONY JONES: Sorry, my apologies to the people of Bentleigh. The views expressed by our panellists are not reflected in what the ABC believes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: The ABC has never heard of Bentleigh.

TONY JONES: We certainly have, Barry. That's completely wrong. Do you have any sense of the Australian male on the world stage, Miriam?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Very little, I have to be honest. There's a cyclist, isn't there, whose mojo is powerful.

TONY JONES: Cadel Evans.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Yes, wonderful.

TONY JONES: From Bentleigh.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Wonderful. He looks so good on a cycle as opposed to the other puny little gentleman that we referred to, Mr Abbott, I believe is his name who is also a cyclist of some repute.

TONY JONES: He is not exactly puny if you were to see him up close.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Thank goodness I have never had.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Mind you, Julia would be interesting on a bike.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Hear, hear!

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Just get a mental picture of that.

TONY JONES: Okay I mentioned Germaine Greer on this show not so long ago and I don't really want to go further into that territory. David...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I'm not.

TONY JONES: No, she had a bit of an issue with the Prime Minister's...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I know but it was not nicely expressed, I didn't think. I thought I got it better.

JACKI WEAVER: You did.

TONY JONES: You're certainly more subtle. That's for sure.

TONY JONES: David, Australian men, have they changed a lot?

DAVID MARR: No, what is this rubbish? I mean the international stage? I mean this is the Australian male on the international stage and it's embarrassing enough. Him and an Olympic cyclist and that's all we've got? Poor Australia. Oh, and Bob Carr now is our Foreign Minister.

JOHN HEWSON: Bob Carr, yeah.

DAVID MARR: Bob Carr on the foreign stage and, yes, he is certainly fit, lean and full of fight.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: He looks as though he works for a funeral parlour.

JACKI WEAVER: Well, what about...

TONY JONES: Okay, let's move on quickly. We have questions from the audience, people are too afraid to put their hands up. Some of them submitted questions earlier. This one is from Brett Moorgas.

UN-AUSTRALIAN

BRETT MOORGAS: So I've got a really big bug bear and that's there's increasing use of the term un-Australian when someone disagrees about something or disagrees about what's being done. And I think it's because there's generally an outdated view on a general scale of what it means to be Australian. I'm just interested in what the view of the panel is and whether we do need to spend some time to redefine who we are?

TONY JONES: I'm going to start with someone who wants to become an Australian and just get a sense. Do you have a sense of what Australians are, Miriam, and do they need to redefine themselves, if you want to take the question?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I don't think you need to redefine yourselves. I think of Australians as being ironic, slightly cool in their attitudes, very fair-minded, humorous, generous, occasionally racist, extremely drunken most of the time that could perhaps be modified a bit. I think it's a wonderful nation of strong, decent people. I'm not too happy that they don't have Dickens on the syllabus anymore. I think that's really quite shocking and should be changed and I'm going to try to do that but I love Australia and my partner is Australian. She comes from a very strange town, an invented place called Canberra and my first experience of Australia was a Canberran experience, which not perhaps the healthiest to have but I'm desperate to get in. Please have me.

TONY JONES: Well, it sounds like by acclamation you're probably in but, of course, you still have to answer a questionnaire, as you probably know, and one of the questions is what is Don Bradman's batting average. Do you actually know that yet?

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I didn't actually know it but Mr Hewson very kindly let me into the secret. I think it's something like 99.4. Is that right?

JOHN HEWSON: Something like that, yeah.

DAVID MARR: But it's okay because, in fact, that question is not on the questionnaire. It's alright, there are other tremendously difficult questions but not that one.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Do they ask people about the characters in the novels of Patrick White?

DAVID MARR: Yes, they do. They do.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Now, David is the...

DAVID MARR: From Hurtle Duffield down, yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, David is the author of a great biography of Patrick White and I think today is a special day, isn't it, David?

DAVID MARR: It is 100 years today since little Paddy came struggling into the world in a Knightsbridge apartment with a view of Hyde Park and about 16 indoor servants. Yes, his struggle began a century ago today.

TONY JONES: A typical Australian by the sound of it?

DAVID MARR: He was, in fact, one of those Australians - he came from one of those families who believed themselves and felt as at home in England as they did in Australia and I would just guess that you, Barry, are another of those who feel just as at home in Britain as you do here and they lived in a big world, which was absolutely Australian but it had England too and that was a very Australian experience. It wasn't just here, it was Australia, it was, in fact, in those days the empire and they were part of they felt themselves to be part of a very big world as Australians.

TONY JONES: And now, of course, the Australian experience probably includes being part of Malaysia or Indonesia or Iraq or many other countries as well so there has been a sort of great shift in our country.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Well, the gentleman who asked the question looks black to me. Are you?

BRETT MOORGAS: Last time I looked, yes.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Well, are you Australian?

BRETT MOORGAS: I came out here when I was two months old.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: So you are now, aren't you?

BRETT MOORGAS: Pretty much, yes.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Well, isn't that fabulous. I think that's one of the strengths of the country because, you know, here I am white and here you are black and you're in and I'm not.

TONY JONES: We've got someone with their hand up. I just want to hear Barry on this question.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, I just thought you were badly lit.

TONY JONES: I will come back to you on this but we've actually god - there's a lady over here with her hand up and I'd like to take your spontaneous question since you're the only one brave enough to do that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. Thank you. I responded to several of the questions that were happening, particularly Miriam's suggestion and lamenting that we don't have Dickens in our syllabus but, in fact, we are Australians, we're not English. I think that is what our previous speaker was talking about so that's, I think, one of the key things that's now a key issue about our identity is how much of us are Englishness and how much is actually the diversity of all Australians, which we have no longer English.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: But Dickens is a universal writer.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: He's a great author.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: But does that mean you shouldn't know about the best that there is? You should have Shakespeare. You should have everything here in Australia.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We should always have Patrick White. We should be celebrating our own cultural identity.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: I agree but it doesn't mean that you have to cut out the others that are there.

DAVID MARR: But look what Dickens did to this country. He treated Australia as a dumping ground for felons and for other criminals. It was an appalling treatment. I think Dicken s should be struck off all school syllabuses. He did not have the kind of pan patriotic view of the Empire that was required at the time. It's just a terrible failing.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: And also Beethoven and Mozart.

DAVID MARR: Go. Off.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: We should have didgeridoos.

TONY JONES: Barry, a serious question. The Australian identity, the heart of that question was about the Australian identity, whether it's changing, whether we need to redefine ourselves. What do you think?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: We're been anguishing about our identity for so long. It seems to me that Miriam's description of the Australian is an extremely good one and perceptive and I think it's all we need. Do you go around all day long worrying about your identity, David?

No, I think it's a ridiculous waste of time. Let's just be. Let's just be.

TONY JONES: Let me go into the middle of this conversation and hear from Jacki? What are your thoughts about hearing that (indistinct).

JACKI WEAVER: I have no idea what the Australian identity is. I think all the things that Miriam mentioned are pretty spot on but we are such a polyglot lot. I mean I'm half English and I love England but I would never call myself...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: You don't read Dickens, I hope?

JACKI WEAVER: I think we should have Kristina Stead and Patrick White on the syllabus. I don't understand that.

DAVID MARR: They are there. They are on the syllabus.

JACKI WEAVER: I thought they weren't.

DAVID MARR: It's all right. It's all right, yes. They're there.

JACKI WEAVER: I read an article that said they weren't.

TONY JONES: We could have Dickens as well. I think that's the point. John Hewson?

JOHN HEWSON: Look, I think we're evolving. Our identity is evolving and we should face the reality of the fact that it's evolving. I mean I think our greatest asset in this country is that we've built a multicultural, multiracial society; a very tolerant, multicultural, multiracial society. It's a work in progress. I think we should build on it. We should recognise the value of the diversity of experience and history and so on that comes from that. And I get frustrated when I think we try to fit a particular mould. I mean some people want to go back to England because they imagine Paddington Bear is still standing on every street corner. I mean, the world has changed. England has changed. We've changed and we've got to recognise how we're changing and capitalise on that and I'm very proud of what we've achieved as a nation.

TONY JONES: Well, we're fast running out of time. There is time for one last question. It's from Maya Newell.

SATIRE AND DAME EDNA

MAYA NEWELL: My question is for Barry. If Dame Edna was to grace us with her presence, perhaps a holiday from her retirement village, what would she think of satirists of the 21st century and what is the value of humour and eccentricity in politics?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, I think when Dame Edna - as far as I can speak for this woman - looks at Ms Gillard and rather wishes that she was there. She'd make a good Prime Minister, I think and there is one moment in any evening which is catastrophic and that is when you ask for the final question.

TONY JONES: Yes.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: It's always a disaster like this. What would Edna think of Australia now, do you say?

TONY JONES: Yes, I think you could well pose that question?

TONY JONES: Was that it? If that's the one you'd like to answer, Barry. What would she think of Australia?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Well, I think she would adore it, as I do. I don't think I've ever really felt I've lived in a more blessed period in history or in a place. Everyone looks wonderful and this audience, which are sort of all teenagers, and reassures me that when I do do this show, which I believe is soon, I can use a lot of old material because everyone who was at my other shows is dead.

TONY JONES: Not all of us. Not all of us. In fact it's probably a good idea because it doesn't seem that you've really engaged with politics here or want to.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: No, I'm not interested really in politics and I'm not interested in sport. So I miss out a lot of I used to be very interested in alcohol so I can claim to be, you know, very, very Australian in spite of that.

TONY JONES: David?

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Oh, no, I was just agreeing with him. You know, those were the years. Those were the years. But behind him now and, look, I think Edna has not left her run too late. The leadership situation in Canberra is astonishingly fluid at the moment and there is likely to a seat on the central coast of New South Wales up for grabs at any minute. I can see Edna powering into the seat of Dobell and transforming public life in this country.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: And it's significant that this mythological city, this invented city of Canberra is also the pornography centre of Australia.

DAVID MARR: Yes. The warehouses of Fyshwick. It's where it all...

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Fyshwick?

DAVID MARR: Fyshwick. What a name, Fyshwick.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: I knew I'd seen you somewhere before.

DAVID MARR: I thought we weren't going to mention that.

BARRY HUMPHRIES: Loading your trolley.

DAVID MARR: You in that rather heavy raincoat and those silly dark glasses. I saw through you.

TONY JONES: I was going to throw around to the rest of the panel but I've actually forgotten what the question was. So, sadly, that's all we have time for. Please thank you our panel: David Marr, Jacki Weaver, Barry Humphries, Miriam Margolyes and John Hewson. Miriam, that is your queue to go down to the lectern.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: Thank you.

TONY JONES: Next week, in what I can assure you will be a far more conventional program, Q&A will be live in Toowoomba in south eastern Queensland with the Minister for Regional Australia and the Arts, Simon Crean; Queensland Senator and Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Barnaby Joyce; the newly elected leader of the Greens, Christine Milne; and the Torres Strait Islands' musician Jeremy Marou. Well, after an hour discussing identity, performance and satire, let's hear from one of the greatest writers and satirists of the English language. We'll finish tonight with Miriam Margolyes' performance as one of Charles Dickens' most memorable women, the heavy drinker Sarah Gamp, specialised in midwifery and laying out the dead and recalling the passing of her own husband in Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit. Until next week's Q&A, goodnight.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES: When Gamp was summonsed to his long home and I seen him lying in the hospital with a penny piece on each eye and his wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should have fainted away but I bore up. If it wasn't for the nerve, a little sip o' liquor gives me I could never go through with what I sometimes has to do. As I said to my friend, Mrs Harris, the very last cases ever acted in, "Mrs Harris," I says, "Don't name the charge, I beg. For if I could afford to lay out all my fellow creatures for nothing, I would gladly do so. Such is the love I bears 'em." Thank you, sir. That's it, folks.