The premise for Annabel Crabb’s Kitchen Cabinet series on the ABC is pretty simple: go to the house of a member of parliament and get them to cook her a meal while she chats away.

It is intimate, revealing and often utterly compelling. It has also turned into a ratings winner for Auntie.

So it might seem odd to decide to break the rules. Nonetheless, with her first episode of the year Crabb has decided to chat to a retiree rather than an MP. Of course, when the retiree in question is former prime minister Bob Hawke, the deviation is fairly minimal.

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“We did a couple of things different this series,” says Crabb.

“The 44th Parliament, which was a very turbulent one, contributed to the perception that politicians are becoming more vicious, more shallow. So I wanted to talk to a veteran about that. We’d sort of mentioned it to his office a couple of times and it was particularly pleasing he said yes this time round.”

The decision to centre her show around an octogenarian came with some trepidation, but the opening sequence of Crabb sailing into one of Sydney’s intimate inlets on a speed boat is instantly intriguing.

Full of food and life: Bob Hawke and Annabel Crabb share a table. Photo: ABC

“I was a bit worried, because he’s 85 and we are pretty demanding guests when we turn up at your house. We film for quite a long time and we really do stage a house invasion,” she says.

“But he could not have been a more hospitable host. He kept up his energy levels throughout and cooked a delicious meal!”

The experiment was a success, too, in terms of getting a fresh focus on the current parliamentary offerings and Hawke and his wife Blanche d’Alpuget are utterly charming, and clearly still very much in love, as they show Crabb through their luxury, secluded harbourside Sydney home.

“He sounded different from today’s politicians. He was notoriously the prime minister who broke all the rules and got away with it,” she says.

“In this era when politicians are so carefully managed it’s good to hear someone like that.”

Not content with one break in tradition, Crabb pursued a second.

“I asked a couple of other former prime ministers. I asked John Howard because my innate sense of ABC balance says it was needed. Mr Howard declined with apologies.”

Clive Palmer also declined but Crabb has no regrets about there being no Palmer Party representatives this time around. She’s aware her series is starting to outlast some parliamentary careers.

She does have one big regret, however. The one that got away.

“A lady called Julia Gillard who never came on the show despite my entreaties,” Crabb laments.

“I did try again but she was a bit unwilling. She was unwilling when she was prime minister and even before that because she’s not really a cook and felt she would be pretending if she came on. I have explained that we have had some really low-grade cooks, the amazing part is the conversation. But she seems unconvinced.”

So what can viewers expect to see post the Hawke episode? Liberal MP Andrew Robb and his friend and former politician Mary Jo Fisher come up next, followed by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and current Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.

Kitchen Cabinet season four premieres on ABC1, 8pm, Tuesday, October 21.