“No chance”: Aussie singer Jimmy Barnes rules out career in politics
Jimmy Barnes has consistently been outspoken throughout his career and using his voice to speak about issues surrounding poverty, hardship, abandonment and war.
Despite the star wanting to do his bit, there is no chance he is running for office.
"There is no chance of politics for me. I'm way too blunt, I don't think I'd get voted in," he told ABC Radio Adelaide's Ali Clarke.
"I'd make a good dictator [but] maybe not even then. I don't know if I'd like to live underneath me."
The Cold Chisel frontman had a well-received appearance on Q&A, where the topics range from the environment to Labor’s unexpected electoral defeat.
Fans who saw the frontman on the show urged him to get into politics, but Barnes thinks it takes “a particular kind of person”.
"It takes a particular type of person — unfortunately, most politicians are not that particular type of person," he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
"You have to compromise and do deals to get things done, and I tend to like to do things my own way.
"It's easier for anybody to sit back and critique these people from a distance, but getting your hands dirty and getting in there is a different thing."
Barnes also admitted he respected Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s political approach.
"He's trying to do a good job out there," Barnes said.
Barnes said that politics is difficult, but fears that Labor is losing touch with its working-class roots.
"As much as I do support Labor a lot … I think they didn't sell that message well enough," he said on Q&A.
"There was too much talk about protecting people's rights to own multiple houses.
"Most people in the electorate out there that I know are struggling to pay rent.
"It wasn't about, you know, getting franking credits … it was about the real issues of just trying to feed your family, and they weren't being addressed enough."
With seventeen albums under his belt, it’s clear that Barnes is passionate about his music and the issues that are close to him.
He recognises and regularly reflects on the impact that his childhood had on him growing up.
"[We] lived in pretty extreme poverty with a lot of violence and lot of abuse … and I just thought that was criminal.
"The saddest part is writing this record 60 years later, there are still kids living in the suburbs of Adelaide and Sydney and everywhere else across Australia in that same poverty with that same abuse."