Nicola Roxon is not doing a particularly good job at demonstrating women should not place such high demands on themselves.
The federal Attorney-General has popped home from work to whip up a spring risoni and Swedish apple cake to accompany the interview.
Versatile ... Nicola Roxon has enjoyed a stellar career, but is also a dab domestic hand, cooking for her office and family.Credit: Justin McManus
While she slices vegetables and peels prawns she explains that cooking not only relaxes her but eases her mind about what her daughter and husband are eating.
"I have turned into a person who cooks things at the weekend and puts things in the freezer," Roxon says.
Nicola Roxon's prawn risoni with spring vegetables.Credit: Justin McManus
"I care about them eating well. And it's relaxing. I eat out all the time or on planes, so to cook what you like is a great thing.
"Other people's partners want to go out but for us it's being at home or having friends over."
The kitchen overlooks the dining room and family room, which allows Roxon to cook while still chatting to family or friends.
She is close to her mother and two sisters and when everyone's partners and children are present there are 12 people.
If they didn't come over for family meals, Roxon says she "wouldn't see them". "You don't have time for many things in this job," she says.
"You either play sport or you do one thing."
Roxon tries to squeeze in two: cooking and swimming.
Cooking strays into the office. The Roxon office has a lunch club where staff shop, cook, trade recipes and prepare meals they can all share so they do not have to rely on takeaway in Melbourne or the Parliament House cafeteria in Canberra – though the risoni is unlikely to make it onto the menu, as Roxon decides it is disappointing and "a bit boring".
Roxon's Melbourne home is overflowing with flowers – so many that she has run out of vases in which to put them.
"It's lovely, but I feel like saying to people – no, you're the ones who deserve praise, you've been pushing for this for 20 years," Roxon says while struggling to find a vase large enough for the most recent generously sized bouquet.
It is just after the High Court's decision to throw out a case by tobacco companies challenging the federal government's plain-packaging legislation.
In a world-first, tobacco products in Australia will have to be sold in nondescript plain brown containers from December 1.
Roxon devised the policy when she was minister for health.
After a ministerial reshuffle last year she became Attorney-General, the first woman to hold the position.
There was a nice symmetry in the appointment. Roxon graduated equal top in law from Melbourne University in 1990 before going to work as a legal associate for Australia's first female High Court judge, Mary Gaudron.
But Roxon says she still felt a little twinge when she changed portfolios because of the time she had spent devising policies to further drive down Australia's smoking rate.
There was a personal element to it as well.
Her father, Jack Roxon, died of oesophageal cancer when she was 10. The disease has been linked to tobacco use and Jack Roxon had been a smoker.
"It has been with me for a while," Roxon says of her work on smoking-related policies.
"You get attached to issues."
Now Roxon is moving on to other headline-grabbing areas.
She recently released a discussion paper relating to more than 40 proposed changes to national security legislation.
If passed, the proposals would be the most significant expansion of national security powers since the Howard-era reforms of the early 2000s.
Among the options under consideration is a data retention plan that would force all Australian telcos and internet service providers to store the online data of all Australians for up to two years.
"For a Labor attorney-general it's hard, balancing keeping people safe but with being respectful of people's privacy," Roxon says.
Roxon expects to cop criticism from all sides whatever position she decides to take on data retention: "You're going too far for the left and not enough for the right."
Roxon was appointed minister for health by former prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2007, a relationship she later revealed she found extremely difficult in the lead-up to the leadership challenge in February this year.
At the time, she says, she was so thrilled to be part of a Labor government that she didn't really stop to think about how she would "have it all".
"I was the first woman in cabinet with such a young child [her daughter, Rebecca, was two]," Roxon says.
"That was more of a juggle than I realised at the time."
When Rebecca was born, Roxon's mother travelled to and from Canberra with her so she would be able to breastfeed.
"Now I think about it, a lot of other people had to step up to allow me to do that," Roxon says.
"The guys don't have the same pressure. I worry about the message that you can do everything."
She thinks it would not have been possible for both her and her husband to pursue political careers and still have time for family.
The decision was taken years ago that Roxon would pursue politics and her husband, lawyer Michael Kerrisk, would not.
"If Michael hadn't made a decision to stop being in politics we couldn't have done this," she says.
Roxon's job involves frequent travel. Kerrisk's job allows him to be home at night and at the weekends.
She wryly observes that Kerrisk was delighted when a recent episode of the ABC's Australian Story program showcased his ironing skills. A viewer later called her office to suggest "Mr Roxon" change laundry products to make his ironing easier.
More women in the workplace and more women in senior roles in the workplace means family life is changing for everyone.
"Husbands are going to have to make those changes," Roxon says.
But the more things change, the more they stay the same, she notes.
Male colleagues do not get asked how they can "have it all".
"It's frustrating that there's more interest in that than your policy work, [but] if you're in public life it comes with the territory," she says.