Jimmy Barnes Helped Magda Szubanski Bloody Eviscerate The Plebiscite On 'Q&A' Last Night

Important though its discussions are, Q&A can sometimes be a bit of a wanky affair. It's not exactly a rare occurrence that the beloved weekly political program stacks its deck with talking-head experts and intellectuals who have a tonne of brains but worryingly little heart — but last night it more than made up for it with magnificent appearances from Jimmy Barnes and Magda Szubanski, who proved to have both in abundance on a slobberknocker of an outing.

As Fairfax has been quick to note in a couple of pieces this morning, the dual power of Barnes and Szubanski was a sight to behold throughout the program, sitting either side of host Tony Jones and between fellow guests Fiona Nash and Jacqui Lambie (as well as Tony Burke), and aligning themselves early on in response to an initial question about the proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage.

Given that Szubanski identifies as a lesbian and happens to be Barnesy's granddaughter's godmother, there was a clearly personal element to their solidarity; as Szubanski made the well-repeated arguments in favour of marriage equality — including the fact that 72% of Australians are in favour of changing the law — and questioned Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's apparent desperation to please marginal leaders such as George Christensen, Barnes mused on the fact it seems "a bit odd that they didn't have a plebiscite to change it in the first place" (when the government introduced the Marriage Amendment Act 2004 and, consequently, the nation's current legal definition of the term 'marriage', which didn't exist until then).

"I remember when Malcolm … came into power and it was the shining light, everything's going to change, and I just thought it was really very sad that someone who comes and takes over as prime minister of our country can't even stick to his own standards, what he believes in," Barnes reflected on the show, prompting host Tony Jones to argue, "He's got to worry about politics, though". 

"Yeah, but a leader, for me, has to stand his own ground on human rights, and this is about equality," Barnes shot back. "It's a basic right that we have, and if he can turn around, just to keep his job, and change his opinion, it's not good enough for me."

Things didn't get more comfortable from there; inspired to defend her leader, Nash stepped up to tout the apparent benefits of conducting the plebiscite before Szubanski utterly demolished her:

"You're saying that it is such a grave issue that every single Australian must vote on this — why?" Szubanski charged the politician. "Why not vote on other issues like superannuation? Why not a plebiscite on that? Why not a plebiscite on… aged care? Those people are living below the poverty line. Why not a plebiscite on that? 

"Now, Jimmy and I are family. I'm the godmother of his granddaughter. He's a Scottish migrant, I'm a Polish-Scottish migrant. His wife is Thai. I'm a lezzo. We are that modern family. What threat does it pose except I don't have the same rights as the other people in my family?"

Enter Barnesy with the back-up play: "I just don't think we should be spending $170 million on whatever it is when there's people sleeping on the streets in Australia, there's kids that are hungry, there's families that need counselling to deal with domestic violence… all sorts of better ways of spending money than a non-binding plebiscite."

And that was all in the first 10 minutes. 

Continuing on, the plebiscite dominated much of the evening's discussion but, over the course of the rest of the hour, Szubanski, Barnes and Nash — and Burke and Lambie, who of course did also join the fray during that charged first half — verbally sparred over issues including terrorism, Islamophobia and other brands of cultural fearmongering, including Reclaim Australia and other extreme-right groups' penchant for Barnes' music, his opposition to which, he says, generated death threats.

"You should've seen the mail I got," he said. "The comments I got on Facebook and Twitter were absolutely horrific. People threatening my children, you know. 

"It was like, because I didn't want to have my songs associated with hate speech, they said I was supporting radical Islam and I should be killed. Ridiculous."

Watch the full episode via iview.