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With Good News Week focus firmly back on the news , host Paul McDermott wants more politicians on the show.
And at the top of that list is Prime Minister John Howard , closely followed by former prime minster Paul Keating and former Vistorian premier Jeff Kennett.
Good News Week is back to a single show this year after overstretching itself with two programs last year , GNW and GNW Night Lite.
It also has a new timeslot , screening at 8:30pm on Saturday.
Since it's launch , Good News Week has attracted personalities such as Johanna Griggs , Kate Fischer , Wendy Harmer , Anthony Morgan , Natasha Stott-Depoja , Anthony Field and Hugh Jackman.
And those politicians who have dared to their wits against the acerbic McDermott and quick-witted team leader Mikey Robins seem to enjoy the experience , according to McDermott.
"It's great to have someone with a different opinion coming on the show and either stating their opinion or justifying it in the face of a fair number of people who might disagree with them," McDermott says.
"We had Amanda Vanstone and Tim Fischer , and I think they had had an enjoyable time , especially when they met John Astin , who played the part of Gomez in The Addams Family.
"I think people enjoy the program , coming along and performing on it and seeing how it cuts up afterwards.
"Certainly , there's sometimes been a bit of worry from some of the more conservative politicains that we've maybe gone overboard with some our comments , but some of that may hit the editing-room floor.
"Some of it is a bit Libellous , scurrilous , blasphemous and things of that nature."
McDermott's plan is to persuade Mr Howard to appear on the show.
"I think if we pretend we're a rural community , we might have a shot at it." he says. "A commuinty with no bank , very little telecommunications and a few complaints , and maybe if we all wear Akubras and take off into the bush somewhere , or on the edge of the desert.
"We'll say we're a failed textiles company and we'd like him to come out and have a bit of a chat to us.
"We don't want an apology , we just want his presence."
McDermott is also keen to get Mr Kennett on the show , claiming 60 Mintues' newest reporter has always proven hard to pin down.
"Jeff's been flirting with us for years." McDermott says. "He says he'll come on , he doesn't come on and now this thing with Bolte , with the portrait going missing , I totally support him with this , I think that if's there's a nice painting at work and no-one appreciates it , there's no reason why you can't take it home."
McDermott says he's happy the show has returned to one night a week , although he reckons 90 mintues is still a long time. "I like an hour - an hour's great , especially for the same money," he says. "If it was 30 mintues , I'd be even happier.
"Ten minutes would be joyous. If I could come in for 10 minutes a week and do that , then I'd be really happy - it would take a lot of the pressure off."
Seriuosly , though , he says it's wrong that people are generally working such long hours.
"I reckon for many of us now , 10 mintues is about the optimum you're going to get , in concentration span and interest," he says.
McDermott who admits he easily distracted , says it's tough job to maintain interest and enthusiasm , especially when it can take up to eight hours to finich recording an episode.
"I've just got to maintain it - it's the job , so I just have to do it," he says.
Watch him in action and you have to admire his ability to keep up the performance.
During the taping of the second episode , McDermott didn't leave the set once in three hours.
While the guest were happy to sit and chat quietly during breaks in taping , McDermott and Robins managed to keep up the patter , with occasional bursts from the other team leader , Julie McCrossin.
Once the cameras were turned off , McDermott paced back and forth across the stage , throwing jokes , one-liners and abuse at his co-stars , guests and auidence alike.
A young woman who tried to get up to go to the toilet during in filming was given short shrift by McDermott and Robins.
"Where do you think you're going," they thundered her. "If you leave you won't be allowed back in."
McDermott says that taking the show on the road is probably the most difficult part of the job.
"It's been mad when we do the Perth Entertainment Centre or the Town Hall in Melbourne," he says.
"You start at nine in the morning after getting to bed at about three and having a bit of bevvy to cheer yourself up. By the time you crawl into bed , you're basically crawling out again , and then when we do the shows somewhere like the town hall , they normally take a bit longer to record.
"I think Perth was the longest we were performing - it was eight hours."
Describing the show as a "cavalcade of fun", McDermott says the Good News Week concept was influenced by former and current shows , including Britain's Have I Got News for You , which has a similar panel format.
"But the idea of looking at the news in a satirical way , the week's events , this is the week that was goes back to early radio programs," he says.
McDermott says GNW this year will focus more on hard news , with comdey and variety around it.
"I hope this year we can continue to do the hard news stories that made GNW a popular show and have the same level of bands , music and variet that we had last year on Night Lite," he says.
Paul McDermott says his new ABC show takes television back to what it used to be - live to air, black and white, single cam. Actually, the show is none of those things, but he claims the spirit of the olden times will creep through.
McDermott, best known as the aggressive-on-stage, creative-off-stage force behind the anarchic singing comedy act the Doug Anthony Allstars, is the host of the ABC's new satirical current affairs game show, Good News Week.
"There's a lot of excitement in this show," he says, "a sense of going back to the days when television was filmed live in front of an audience. We've seen so much hype and glamour in television - this show relies on people's intelligence and wit."
The program is modelled on the cultish BBC show Have I Got News For You, in which two teams, consisting of two permanent team leaders and various weekly guests, pit wits as they ad lib gags about the news stories, headlines, footage and photographs. It's risky business because, if the talent flounders under the pressure, so does the show. McDermott says the Australian version, with team captains Mikey Robins and Anthony Ackroyd, will start off as derivative of the British program but gradually evolve into a unique Australian style and format.
As a proponent of original Australian television ideas, "I think it's essential that it evolve", he says earnestly. McDermott, who occasionally looks disturbingly like Tom Hanks gone punk-and-gel, launches into a sweeping indictment of television comedy.
While saying he admires the pioneering work of The Comedy Company, he says they chose easy targets, racial and social stereotypes. And the thought of the long-lived success of Hey Hey It's Saturday makes him blanch into his pot of tea.
McDermott believes comedy should have the ability to change people's ideas and concepts and to challenge the status quo aggressively. Good News Week, he believes, does a bit of that and, in an impressive display of television faith, the ABC has already commissioned 50 shows.
Some of McDermott's best memories of his Doug Anthony Allstars days centre on The Big Gig and being able to do jokes about Salman Rushdie almost as soon as the fatwah was issued.
"The ABC were terrified there was going to be a backlash (after the Rushdie jokes), but there was that adrenalin, that feeling of being right in the moment," he says.
Good News will not be live to air but will be shown just days after it is taped. In dealing with the news stories of the week, McDermott intimates the show will be almost as bad and edgy as DAAS, a group renowned for having the bad taste to do Kurt Cobain jokes when the sound of the shot that killed him was still reverberating.
"I've never been one to stay away from putting the boot into the corpse until the body is cold," McDermott grins.
DAAS broke up in 1994, just after being offered its own series by Channel Four in Britain. Before that, the group had the ABC series DAAS Kapital, appeared on the Big Gig and worked extensively in the UK. Since the split, McDermott has been cruising quietly, spending a lot of time lying on the beach and taking long walks. He says he never really liked the idea of performing; he was a shy, retiring writer who just accepted that he had to get up on stage if he wanted to express his ideas.
His more recent work has included taking part in the Comedy Festival debate last year and putting together his theatre show, Mosh. Now he has had to add reading newspapers to a busy schedule that includes doing some work on Triple J with Angela Catterns and taking Mosh to festivals in Adelaide and Melbourne.
Meanwhile, former band-mate Tim Ferguson has been romping all over the box on Channel Nine with Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and other assorted specials.
McDermott is keen to point out that there is not some kind of causal relationship between DAAS and game shows.
"This is not really a game show; there are no prizes, no seduction of the audience with money. It's a joke on a game show."
One older couple in the audience make the trip down from the Central Coast as often as they can get tickets. Paul McDermott spots them as he walks on. "Great to see you back . . ." he says. "I've been reading the funeral notices, just in case."
Some casually dressed latecomers sneak in just as Robbins and McCrossin enter. "Heyheyhey!" Robbins calls after them. "It's not like you were late because you were shopping for clothes..."
McDermott runs through the week's headlines, and when he fluffs, everyone has to back-track. He gives us our cue: "If I move my leg like this," he gives an Elvis-style swivel, "can I have a slight titter?" Robbins keeps things bubbling. He turns to a boy in the audience.
"What's your best subject?"
"English."
"Oh dear," says Robbins. "I hope you can drive a cab." Later he looks at the audience and asks if there are any people here "who get aroused by watching fat guys sweat".
A few things have to be reshot afterwards, because of camera problems or human error, but the fun doesn't stop and many of the jokes could never be broadcast. Afterwards, as the team shoots some promos, Robbins and McDermott break into a waltz. "Don't lead," McDermott snaps. There is, someone says, too much testosterone in the studio. "Does that mean I'm going to get pregnant if I stand here doing the promo shot?" asks McCrossin.
Suddenly Robbins demands a clitoris: "I'm white. I'm male. I'm middle-class. I deserve a clitoris."
He decides the best site would be the forehead, and suddenly all start rubbing their foreheads. McDermott says thoughtfully that unless people are careful, one hand might become wasted. "Unless you got two..."
Everyone starts rubbing with both hands.
The crowd doubles up. They never see this on TV. As Laura Gant, of Caringbah, says: "I think it's a lot more entertaining than when you watch it on television."
Paul McDermott, the little general, is on the attack. Flanked by Major Mikey Robins and Nurse Julie McCrossin, the sharp-dressed, shap-tounged host of Ten's Good News Week is ripping into an audience member foolish enough to spark a battle of wits.
The result is both entertaining and cruel: McDermott stabs, his victim stammers; Robins thrusts, the victim stumbles. "I have a microphone you don't - who do you think is going to win?" McDermott snarls before moving on.
With a microphone, McDermott is virtually invincible, especially with Robins and McCrossing at his side. The question is: how long can McDermott hold on to that microphone? He's already done much better than Amanda Keller, his colleague at Ten, whose Switching Lives was axed last month after only five of its 13 contracted outings for "disappointing ratings".
This month Good News Week - GNW for short - celebrates its fourth birthday. And what an interesting childhood it has been, complete with teething problems, two sets of parents and sustained allegations of neglect.
It may be struggling in the ratings, it may still be emerging form a crisis of identity, but GNW has more potential, intelligence and laughs than any other locally-produced program you care to name, not to mention the invaluable leg-up it provides for guest musicians and comedians.
On 12 April, 1996, GNW had its Friday-night premiere on the ABC. McDermott hosted a half-hour of news-related satire with Robins - then, as now, one of the team captains. The opposing team captain proved harder to find. Both Judith Lucy and Anthony Ackroyd had a go before Julie McCrossin moved from starter to stayer.
Despite a shift to Saturday nights. the rhythm was regular, the format predictable and ratings were solid. Then, last year, the GNW team shocked its faithful devotees by moving from the safe, rarifed air of a public broadaster to the competitive climes of commercial TV. Network 10 had poached one of Aunty's best performers.
After its debut on Ten in March, GNW became a programmer's football. It tasted Sunday and Monday nights before a second weekly instalment, a cabaret off-shoot dubbed GNW Night Lite, found its way into Thursday's line-up. "We're trying to crack it so we've been on every night of the week," laughs Ted Robinson, director of the show since the beginning. "There's only a couple left we haven't been on, and maybe we'll manage them before the end of the year."
And now, despite last year's limp ratings, GNW is back, although this year's model is closer to its original format than last year's two-headed beast. Once a week, every Saturday from 8.30pm, GNW mixes local and overseas guests (primarily comics) with news-related games, delightfully absurd comedy routines (by Flacco and Sandman), live musical performances and ad-libbed venom.
It has been the ad-libbed venom that has arguably been the show's most constant characteristic, through all its many changes.
It's a regular Thursday night in North Ryde, where each week a yelping studio audience of about 300 (many of them teenage firls transfixed by the charismatic McDermott, and tonight by Tim Freedman from Sydney pop band The Whitlams) witnesses the recording of Saturday night's show.
It's a rambling four-hour affair - half-scripted, half-improvised - that kicks off soon after 7pm when, intriguingly, Robinson himself warms up the audience. A former commissioning editor of comedy at the ABC and director of The Big Gig, Robinson clearly enjoys getting his hands dirty.
To a huge cheer, Robinson introduces McDermott, who canters elegantly on to stage. Then Robins, beer-in-hand; then McCrossin, as noise and energy levels rise. And the venom is already flowing, some of it between takes, some on camera, directed at audience members, at themselves, at anyone who makes an amusing target.
First it's Kerry Packer. Then Alan Bond. Then poor people. "They stink." McDermott deadpans, his political incorrectness raising an audible ripple of indignation. "And let's face it, they're often poor because they're boring."
Next it's Mike Munro. Charlton Heston. Seniors. Magicians. Politicians. When Robins jibes about stroke victims, the audience - in the sort of reaction that might be described as perfectly GNW-esque - isn't sure if it's offended or amused. "I can make that joke, because my grandfather had a stroke," Robins says, seemingly compassionate. But no. "So we stopped going around there."
Ten certainly deserves a helping of abuse for its handling of Good News Week, the many programming shifts seemingly inexplicable. So, has GNW finally found a regular slot on Saturday nights?
"I see that as being the natural home of the show," says David Mott, Ten's general manager of network programming. "The Saturday night version did perform well on the ABC. We obviously took a look at other timeslots last year, but it was against some tough opposition... It's a real alternative to everything else on TV at that time." What about the lacklustre ratings? "The demographics we're achieving are improving," Mott says. "We're getting about 35 per cent of the 16-39 audience. For us on Saturday night that's doing the job, although I'd like it to grow."
Perhaps surprisingly, the GNW team feels thoroughly at home on Ten. In particular, they've been heartened by the edginess they've been able to bring to work at Ten.
They say GNW is more sharp, cruel and unrelenting than ever. "We still get to tip the apple cart over," McDermott says. "We certainly get more letters of complaint from a wider range of people on Ten."
"Night Lite was a fairly radical departure and had a bit of a struggle finding form, but during the first few shows this year the combination is feeling very comfortable, and we're doing what we do best, which is hard news and being controversial. I think Good News Week at the end of last year was the best it has ever been - the writing, the way everyone was used to the format - even if the last 10 shows were stuck on Monday nights at 9.30. The ideas were great, and hopefully we'll be able to continue that."
Robins agrees, saying: "I think we've done some of our nastiest, edgiest stuff last year and this year."
Says Robinson: "At the start we didn't know if we were going to last six weeks. Mikey always said that if we got one (year), we'd get two, and if we got two, we'd get five. Maybe that was prophetic."
That would mean GNW is in its final year. Let's hope not. Let's hope the bad news is over for Good News Week.