Ex-MPs slam politicians' TikTok stunts as voters tune out

A pair of former politicians have turned their fire on the growing trend of sitting members of parliament producing social media videos they say demean the institution and alienate ordinary voters rather than winning them over.

Speaking on 4BC Brisbane, host Gary Hardgrave — who served nearly 12 years in the Australian Parliament — argued that what many MPs believe is savvy digital engagement is actually being ridiculed by the very audiences they are trying to reach. "They think you're stupid," he said bluntly, addressing those behind the videos. "And the rest of us think and know you are."

Among the examples drawn into the firing line was Communications Minister Anika Wells, the member for Lilley, who posted a video comparing headline inflation to characters from the reality series The Secret Lives of Moms and Wives. The segment, billed as a "pre-election guide to the big issues," used pop-culture framing to explain economic policy — an approach Hardgrave dismissed as proof that a minister responsible for communications was failing at the job in her title.

On the other side of the aisle, Liberal deputy leader and Victorian senator Jane Hume attracted similar scorn for filming herself pouring a pink gin during a campaign visit to the Victorian electorate of Casey, declaring that after a week on the hustings "Mummy needs a cocktail." Hardgrave conceded the candidate Hume was spruiking, Aaron Violi, ultimately won the seat, but questioned whether the video had anything to do with it.

Also criticised was Nationals senator Charlotte Walker, whose clip of herself eating a sausage roll in the back seat of a car while taking aim at One Nation prompted Hardgrave to question the value voters receive from a senator earning around $300,000 a year plus expenses and staff.

Former Labor member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby joined the discussion, agreeing the trend reflects a deeper problem with how candidates are selected. He pointed to the centralisation of Labor preselections under both former Victorian premier Dan Andrews and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as having produced a cohort of "yes people" rather than individuals who had fought their way through genuine contests of ideas. He suggested the same dynamic had taken hold inside the Liberal Party.

"It's about going along to get along," Hardgrave said. "And if they don't like you, they're expelling you — certainly here in the Liberal National Party in Queensland. It is extraordinary how politics has been perverted by those who just want to have power."

Danby also raised more substantive concerns about social media itself, pointing to long-running debates in the United States about TikTok's ownership by Chinese company ByteDance and whether the platform's algorithm is being used to shape the views of younger users in ways that run counter to Western democratic values.

The pair agreed that the real cost of the social media spiral is not just embarrassment but a displacement of serious debate. Danby flagged that ASIO's public warning in August 2025 of an increased terrorism threat — serious enough, he argued, to warrant scrutiny in parliament and a royal commission — had gone largely uncontested at question time. "That should be the stuff of politics," he said. "That should be the stuff of question time in federal parliament."

Both men framed the shift as a betrayal of what parliamentary service once represented. "I think we actually cared about Australia," Hardgrave reflected. "It wasn't about us. And I think they've forgotten the nobility of the opportunity to be a member of Parliament."