Politicians let down their guard and eat humble pie in Kitchen Cabinet

As Kitchen Cabinet returns to screens, a whopping 7 years after Annabel Crabb last brough dessert to the table, our trusty host / interviewer is no less enthusiastic about what the informal format elicits from her next politicians.

Pull up a chair Peter Dutton. Spill your guts Linda Burney. Pass the sauce Anika Wells.

8 more politicians are ready to be grilled while grilling dinner, but always with a friendly smile from the inquisitive Crabb in her fashionably fine outfits.

“Kitchen Cabinet is never going to be a substitute for a crunchy, boot-on-throat interview by Sarah Feguson. But it’s a good companion piece, because it allows you to see how people behave, when they’re having a friendly conversation with a guest in their home,” she tells TV Tonight.

“Sometimes the things that they’ll let slip during those conversations are as revealing as the things that they’ll have dragged out of them by a hard news interviewer.

“The reason for that is that people relax. They kind of forget they’re in an interview format and that’s what I’m trying to do with every fibee of my being while I’m in their homes. That includes things like having 4 cameras, so that we don’t have to stop and start and say, ‘Can you say that again?’ I never take my notes into the interview because I don’t want to remind them that this is actually an interview not just two people sitting around playing pasta.”

“Revelations in every episode”

Also featuring this season are former Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews,  Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John and Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe.

“There are revelations in every episode and part of the reason for that is that the people we’re talking to have all had really different paths into politics. I remember when I was making Kitchen Cabinet years ago, you’d always run into a bunch of people who went to university, get involved in student politics, got a job as a staffer… in both both major parties it’s a really common way of getting into politics. Hardly anyone in this series got into politics that way,” she remarks.

“The most interesting thing is that a lot of people in this series have had really significant trauma or misfortune in their early lives. What I find really fascinating is seeing how that influences their behaviour, their decisions and their priorities as adults and as politicians. That to me is the sort of through line of this whole series.”

Linda Burney speaks about being raised as a half-black, half-white child by elderly relatives in a country town in the 1950s. Peter Dutton speaks about his parent’s divorce and being a single father durng his first term and a lengthy stint in the Queensland Police Force.

“He had a number of shocking experiences there, which I think has massively influenced the way he is in politics,” Crabb concludes.

“I think that’s central to his black and white view of who is the good guy and his bad guy in politics and in the community. That’s absolutely at the heart of what makes him make these, sometimes very divisive calls, particularly around race.

“I never go into these trying to make excuses for people. All I’m doing ever is just finding out more information about this person who makes big decisions on all of our behalf. To me that’s never a waste of time.”

So was the Opposition Leader looking to soften his image with an appearance on the ABC series? You bet, but he had also flagged interest when in government.

“He was always keen to come on the show,” she insists. “I remember him raising it with me years ago when we were making The House. But now he is the Opposition Leader so he was one of the first people I asked. This show works best when you see someone that you think you know, because you’ve seen them be a certain way on television. But when you see them at home, you realise there are other things about them that are surprising. In this series, the two most fascinating episodes on that count, would be Peter Dutton and Lidia Thorpe.

“One thing that people wouldn’t know about him is that he’s incredibly shy, which is very weird. You can see it on camera. He is awkward in this circumstance, which is more personal and warm than press conferences where he seems absolutely bulletproof.

“I think people would be surprised by his sense of humour. Now, I don’t mean that to suggest that this show part of a campaign to humanise Peter Dutton, which he obviously has said he wants to do in the past.

“He’s got a specific aim with this show which is ‘Show a different side of myself'”

“He’s got a specific aim with this show which is ‘Show a different side of myself’ and that’s, I assume, why he answers questions on things that he’s never answered before – like his early marriage, becoming a single father in his first term parliament. He had a one year old daughter when he married his second wife. I think that these things have been private his whole life, but he’s sort of opened up about those speed bumps in his life, which I found interesting.”

“She’s a great sample of person cooking a spectacular dish that means a lot to them”

Crabb believes the series also sings when viewers, and consequently the electorate, discover someone they knew little about, with episode one profiling Western Sydney Independent Dai Le.

“She’s a great sample of person cooking a spectacular dish that means a lot to them, and telling their life story while they’re at it. Dai Le is also a really good demonstration of what happens when major parties take whole communities for granted,” she adds.

“The whole reason she is there in that seat is because both major parties kind of stuffed up their handling of the preselections around that seat.

“After the 2022 election the Parliament is the most diverse we’ve ever had in this country. That’s why it seems a pity not to put all these interesting people on TV.

“I mean, no matter how many cartwheels I do, or how nice the desserts are with if they’re the same old, same old politicians it’s not interesting. But this series is absolutely hands down the best we’ve ever made.”

Kitchen Cabinet returns 8pm tonight on ABC.