Join award-winning ABC presenter and writer Annabel Crabb for a new three-part docu-series Annabel Crabb’sCivic Duty. An inquisitive, entertaining and surprising journey into how Australia governs itself, the show will premiere on Monday 10 November at 8:30pm on ABC TV, with all episodes available to stream on ABC iview.
Australians rarely pause to appreciate the miracle behind the ballot box. How often do we stop and marvel at what we’ve built? How many of us know that the familiar, uncontroversial features of our electoral system are – in global terms – highly unusual? And how many of us have heard the rollicking backstories of the democratic dreamers and reformed felons behind it?
Across three episodes Annabel Crabb’s Civic Duty unearths the individuals and stories that combine to make Australian democracy globally unique, like our invention of the secret ballot, our adoption of preferential and compulsory voting, and our peculiar attachment to sausages.
Annabel travels both here and abroad to investigate how the politics of our parliament have changed thanks to political leaders, the media landscape – but most of all - the power of the Australian people.
Production Credit:Annabel Crabb’s Civic Duty is developed and commissioned by the ABC. Writer/Presenter/Executive Producer: Annabel Crabb. Director/Producer: Stamatia Maroupas. Series Producer: Madeleine Hawcroft. Producer: Tania Doumit. ABC Commissioning Editor: Jo Chichester. ABC Head of Documentary & Specialist: Susie Jones. ABC Director Screen: Jennifer Collins.
Annabel unearths the individuals and stories behind the features that combine to make Australian democracy globally unique.
She investigates how the politics of our parliament have changed, thanks to political leaders, a media landscape that’s evolved from newspapers to TikTok in 125 short years and - most of all - the power of the Australian people.
In the early days, Parliament House hosted an all-male conclave of politicians and newspapermen, sharing a cramped environment and a complex code of conventions and mutual dependency. But the age of disruption has arrived.
To see how one of the world’s most potent influencers – U.S. President Donald Trump – is redrawing the press corps, Annabel visits the White House in Washington D.C.
Annabel features on the cover of Sunday Life magazine inside The Sun-Herald and Sunday Age today (paywall)
“[Former prime minister] Julia Gillard was the one I constantly asked, but she always said no,” Crabb says. “She didn’t want to look bad at cooking on television, and that’s fair enough because I think there are different consequences for women in the kitchen.”
Democracies operate according to rules, but they also change. Sometimes at the hands of visionary or power-hungry leaders, sometimes in response to external forces, and sometimes as a result of people power.
Annabel investigates the connection between Australia’s democracy and America’s most infamous historical act of civic disobedience.
Numbers released this week showed the cost of expenses for an eight-day trip to the US by presenter Annabel Crabb for her new show Civic Duty which premiered in November.
The cost of the US leg turned out to be quite the sum, priced at $22,311. For context, the full cost to send Michael Rowland, Sarah Ferguson and David Speers to cover the US election in late 2024 was $36,838.
Crabb’s bill included $3504.65 for flights to and from America, $3637.80 for accommodation, $5855.65 for travel within the US and $3014 for travel allowance. An American associate producer assisting Crabb and her team accounted for $US4422.75 ($6347) of the overall bill.
