Tony Burke SRK Fan
There are interviews you prepare for, and then there are the moments inside those interviews that you cannot prepare for. We had both in the same sitting, during the latest episode of the Pawan Luthra Podcast.
When Tony Burke walked into the Indian Link studio, he carried the full weight of his portfolio with him.
Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Minister for Cyber Security, Minister for the Arts, Leader of the House – he’s one the most consequential figures in the current Australian cabinet.
In conversation with host Pawan Luthra before the interview began, the Minister recalled his visits to India, including an invitation to the Mumbai home of actor Shah Rukh Khan.
But the conversation ahead was set to centre on immigration – the issue of the day.
Pawan had already lined up the questions that mattered: Liberal leader Angus Taylor’s migration policy; the Coalition’s drifting towards One Nation; One Nation’s record support currently; his government’s plans to restore the “social licence” for migration; the issues with skilled migration; Martin Parkinson’s 2023 review of the migration system.
The conversation was going to be heavy, and it was.
Until it wasn’t.
It was somewhere near the end of the recording when Pawan shifted gears, as he often does with guests, steering the conversation toward something warmer and less scripted. He asked Burke, in his capacity as Minster for the Arts, about Indian cinema. There was a pause that followed. Not a politician’s pause, but the pause of a person deciding how honest to be.
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“I am a massive Shah Rukh Khan fan,” Burke began, “so let me start with that. And I love AR Rahman’s soundtracks as well.” There was something almost relieved in the way he said it, as though he had been waiting for the right room to admit this in. This was not a man performing cultural appreciation for a diaspora audience. This was someone who had, at some point in his private life, sat with these films and let them matter to him.
The Minister went on to speak about Chak De! India (2007), a hockey drama filmed in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane; Lagaan (2001), and Jodha Akhbar (2008).
But he saved the best for the end. “The last one I want to mention isn’t just my favourite Bollywood film, it’s my favourite film of all time – Om Shanti Om“.
And then he spoke about that line from the film: “If it’s not happy, it’s not the end, the story is not over yet. It’s a line that feels particularly alive right now, given the world is in such a difficult place.”
A senior government minister, sitting across from us, citing the philosophy of a Farah Khan production, was not what we had expected from the afternoon.
Here was a man who holds the Arts portfolio for an entire nation, who understands at a structural level what culture does to a community and why it endures. And yet his relationship with these films was not administrative. It was personal in the way that only unplanned love can be. No one had briefed him to love Om Shanti Om. He had arrived there on his own.
The clip went viral before the episode had even properly settled, fan pages resharing into loops (garnering 182K views as of this morning).
And before we knew it, Indian media houses were all over it, lifting it, sharing it, clipping it: NDTV, Hindustan Times, India Today, Times of India, The Print, Zoom TV, Live Mint, Times Now, WION News, Aaj Tak, Amar Ujala, Mathrubhumi.
The comments came in thick and fast.
* “He had me at “I’m a fan of Shah Rukh Khan” 😍👏🙌”
* Omg I was not expecting Tony to rattle off Bollywood gems and dialogues! I’m biased I LOVE Om Shanti Om!
* I was about to scroll but then he said Shah Rukh Khan. 🫠✨❤️
And then came the conversations underneath, the ones that always seem to find Shah Rukh Khan eventually.
I’ll say it again, Shah Rukh Khan is the face of Indian cinema, arguably the most famous Indian alive today. You can run all the negative PR you want, but you can’t erase what he has built. The GOAT of Indian cinema Shah Rukh Khan ❤️
Shah Rukh’s name rising this visibly in global discourse had fans noting, not unkindly but firmly, that even Ranveer Singh’s barnstorming run with Dhurandhar (2025-26) had not yet placed him in the kind of cultural conversation where a foreign minister reaches for his films unprompted, in a moment of genuine feeling, years after release. Tony Burke SRK Fan
Minister Burke had come in to talk about migration. He left having wandered elsewhere – into cinema, memory, and the lines we carry when the moment turns difficult. He stepped out of our offices lighter than when he arrived. That, perhaps, is what Shah Rukh Khan tends to do to people.
Read more: Come on Angus Taylor, you can do better
Tony Burke SRK Fan
