Kitchen Cabinet’s perfect recipe for insights into our pollies
By Debi Enker
Should we care if our politicians can fry a fish fillet? Do we need to see what their kitchens look like? If they’re capable representatives of their constituents and effective advocates for the parties or the policies that they were elected to champion, does it matter if they can’t boil an egg?
Such questions arise from watching Annabel Crabb’s Kitchen Cabinet (ABC, Tuesdays, 8pm and iview) which recently returned for its seventh season after an eight-year break. It’s an ideal vehicle for Crabb’s skills as a journalist and culinary wiz, while the hiatus has given her a fresh crop of interviewees.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe is the latest guest on Annabel Crabb’s Kitchen Cabinet.
Now halfway through an eight-episode run, it’s following the popular format that’s become something of a classic. In a succinct introduction, Crabb describes her subjects as she assembles a dessert that she’s contributing to the meal that they’ll share as she interviews the pollies about their lives.
So far, we’ve seen Western Sydney Independent and Fowler MP Dai Le, federal Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney, and former Greens senator-turned-Independent Lidia Thorpe.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall as suitable dishes for the subject to prepare are workshopped with his or her staff. It needs to be something that they’re able to master because they can’t look incompetent. But nothing fancy, which risks making them appear pretentious. And something that reflects their lives and lifestyles. It’s a big ask and, so far this season, each of them has cleared that hurdle.
It’s incorrect to accuse Annabel Crabb of not asking tough questions of Peter Dutton and others on Kitchen Cabinet.
Interestingly, and for different reasons, the women aren’t filmed in their own homes. That’s understandable as there’s no possibility of an empty fruit bowl stealing the spotlight and triggering a snarky backlash about their proficiency as homemakers.
The interviewees clearly relax a bit once the meal gets going. In part, that’s probably because their catering task has been completed, but it’s also a response to Crabb’s genuine curiosity and genial manner, even when she’s asking challenging questions. The guests warm to the conversation, rather than bracing for confrontation because Crabb isn’t manoeuvring to “Gotcha!” moments: she’s seeking insights.
Still, she’s been accused by some of lobbing cream-puff questions and skirting the tough stuff. Which is an unfair criticism that also misreads the point of the program. The goal here is to provide a glimpse of the human being behind the headlines, which the show reliably achieves. Those allegedly tough questions, which are frequently met with rehearsed, press-release responses anyway, can come from news and current-affairs programs.
Here, the revelations arrive in different forms, sometimes in telling details. That’s evident in the episodes featuring this season’s more divisive subjects: Dutton and Thorpe. To watch Dutton methodically slicing and dicing vegetables for his seafood chowder with a firm, unflappable focus is to see a man comfortable with his mission once he’s established the requirements.
Beyond that though, the discussion of his formative experiences on the Queensland police force is illuminating. A teenager from a relatively sheltered home, he was confronted by the cruelty and violence that people can inflict upon each other and it shaped his views on law and order.
Thorpe, introduced as “among the best-known and most controversial people the House has to offer”, is a 50-year-old mother of three and grandmother of five who turns up in pigtails because “it’s a thing I do in the Senate when I’m feeling a bit cheeky”.
The lunch reveals her acute intelligence, combative spirit and easy laugh, and also that she’s a strong-willed person who’s rebelled against rules that she didn’t agree with since she was a teenager.
With Le comes an insight into a perfectionist as she graciously accepts Crabb’s offer of help preparing the greens for the banh xeo then regains control over the prep because she quietly judges that Crabb, who’s no slouch, isn’t doing it properly.
Of course, all the pollies appear here have their own agendas: it might be increased exposure, or a hope to be cast in a more favourable light. For Burney, it’s an opportunity to explain the importance of the upcoming Voice referendum and advocate for a Yes vote. For Dutton, it’s a chance for the Opposition Leader, whom Crabb describes as being “known as the ultimate hard man of politics”, to display a softer side. At home in his welcoming farmhouse, he mentions his shyness, his daily meditation practice and the circumstances of his maiden speech to Parliament. Crabb describes it as “muscular”, to which he responds that his hands were shaking so hard that he couldn’t pick up a water glass.
It’s incorrect, or wilfully selective, to accuse Crabb of not asking tough questions as she poses some rippers. “Do you think you’re at risk of making the same mistake again?” she asks Dutton about his support of the No campaign in the Voice referendum, following his admission that he regrets his negative reaction to the apology to the Stolen Generation.
And how might an African mother feel about having her son labelled as a thug, she asks while questioning him about his much-publicised statement that people in Melbourne were scared of African gangs.
She asks Thorpe about domestic abuse, given the senator’s personal experience of it, and asks if people avoid her in parliament given her reputation for picking fights. Such questions don’t suggest an easy ride.
The responses that she elicits are candid and often emotional, although partners and children, where they exist, aren’t seen and are only fleetingly referenced. If there’s a quality that emerges which unites these guests, despite their different places on the political spectrum, it’s their resilience.
Crabb brings out the best in them: no one comes out of the show looking shabby, and perhaps some of the criticism of it stems from that. Yet offering a human insight doesn’t mean it’s going soft: essentially, it gives the guests space to explain themselves.
But perhaps Kitchen Cabinet should come with a warning: it might persuade you to like, or at least to understand better, politicians whose positions, policies or public personas you might habitually loathe.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.