Is an acceptance that politics is a game feeding a weary cynicism about the whole exercise of democracy? | Ellen Fanning

There are days when the most challenging part of my job is not to fall off my chair in response to some breathtakingly candid comment from a panellist.

Why? Because any acceptance that politics is just a game reinforces the idea that the only real aim of the whole effort is power. To remain in power. And that nothing is possible unless you play it like this.

Now clearly not everything was analysed in these terms. The desperate need to ensure asylum seekers, kept in offshore detention, had access to timely, quality medical care was well covered in many quarters.

In the past week, it was possible to hear endless discussions about a proposed federal anti-corruption commission without hearing much detailed discussion of the competing drafts of proposed legislation.

Heaven knows enough of them have had their lives and businesses affected by bushfires, Covid and recession, not to mention the general dismay at the blowing up of 40,000-year-old sacred sites.

Off air, he asked me if I really thought it was wrong for him to leverage his insider status in this way?