"The Week on Wednesday" with Van Badham & Ben Davison

Weekend Wrap 5 September 2021: Morrison minister calls COVID reopening a plan for a framework that might change as a plan plus Jobkeeper overpayment hypocrisy and worker wins for the week

Ben Davison breaks down Morrison Minister, Stuart Robert's, appalling explanation of the COVID reopening plan on Insiders as NSW hits 24,000 active cases, The Saturday Paper exposes Galdys' 1,700 secret hospital cases and News.com reveals there are three children are in ICU with COVID19.

The Morrison government won't publish the list of companies that received Jobkeeper even though $13 BILLION was over paid to profitable companies yet it is chasing down thousands of workers who received Jobkeeper claiming they've been overpaid a combined amount of around $33 million.  The double standard highlights Morrison's priority remains corporate profit and the oppression of working class Australia.

Workers have had some wins this week with the McCain's workers in Tasmania winning pay increases, union campaigns getting senate recommendations to reform the temporary migration system and legislation has been introduced that will finally allow offshore wind projects in Australian waters.

Episode 53:COVID here to stay, Morrison kills off respect at work for women, The recession and good news on magnetic liquid fighting microplastics

Van Badham and Ben Davison analyse Gladys delusional optimism about COVID reopening, Dan's sombre lockdown extension and the increase in far right foreign agitation as orchestrators of COVID spreading events in Australia are arrested overseas.

The Morrison government drops protections for women from sexual harassment from its respect at work legislation as women across Australia campaign and make #wewontwait trend.  But is the fact that Michaelia Cash is the industrial relations minister and has a track record of selling out other women mean this issue can't be won?  Van tells us why even with Cash in charge the struggle isn't over.

GDP has grown but in every meaningful way we are in a recession.  Ben examines how pretending iron ore price and sales volume increases are somehow the same as the real economy is ignoring the millions of unemployed, underemployed and worker's who's real wages are going backward.

And the good news is about magnetic fluids removing micro-plastics from the oceans!

Plus Germanicus cries, wriggles and generally interferes with the recording.    

Weekend Wrap 29 August 2021: Glady's and Morrison delusions of Freedom day while 15,00 COVID cases active, daily records tumble, a thousand in hospital and 10% of jobs destroyed

Ben Davison looks at the delusions of Glady's and Morrison as Australia reaches more than 15,000 active COVID cases, smashes through 1,200 new cases a day, hospitals are overwhelmed, ambulance services issue warnings and testing clinics are attacked.

The Doherty Institute tries to clarify that even at 70% vaccination rates, if COVID is as loose in the community as it is now, the only solution is lockdowns as Mark Butler goes on Insiders and warns that 6 million Australians will still be unvaccinated at the 70% mark.  NSW is, three months into "lockdowns", only just reaching the half way point to a 70% vaccination rate. 

The Victorian breakdown shows that 600 out of the 773 active cases of COVID are under 40, with more than 300 under the age of 19, calling the whole basis of excluding people under 18 from the Doherty Model into question.

The reality of nearly 10% of all jobs in NSW having been destroyed since this outbreak began should put an end to the health vs economy debate but doesn't even get a mention from Morrison, who refuses to put a wage subsidy scheme or paid vaccination leave in place, or Gladys, who remains delighted at testing rates and wants us to stop focussing on case numbers.

Episode 52: Morrison & Glady's rolling COVID disaster, Corporates trying to use the pandemic to cut job security as workers fight back and the good news is roads that charge electric cars

Van Badham and Ben Davison examine the rolling disaster that is Morrison and Glady's handeling of the COVID pandemic as NSW records a record 919 new cases and two hospitals, Blacktown and Westmead, are unable to take any more COVID patients.  The Ruby Princess inquiry finds the Morrison government didn't learn from mistakes overseas and let 600 COVID infected people out into community.  This as the UK and unvaccinated in the USA start to die and overwhelm hospitals in record numbers and Morrison tries to convice the nation that we too must "open up".  Van and Ben discuss how this feels like a political tactic and that Australian's aren't prepared to pay for community sport with the blood of our communities children.

The workers at Graincorp and Toll are taking industrial action as both companies, hugely profitable, try to use the cover of the pandemic to cut job security and drive down wages.  Australian Unions have launched a national job security campaign as more and more companies are trying to further increase casualisation and outsourcing.  Van and Ben discuss how conservative governments in Germany and even Canada work with workers, in union, to improve job security while the Morrison government has, just this week, proudly taken the lid off the pool of more easily exploitable, temporary migrant workers. 

The good news is that the roads we drive on will soon be able to charge the cars we will soon be driving as companies start making roads in the USA, Italy and Sweden that charge electic vehicles.

Weekend Wrap: Morrison goes on Insiders to spin vaccines failures and abandoning Aussies in Afghanistan, COVID doubles in NSW in 10 days, violent fascist recruitment rallies broken up

Ben Davison analyses Morrison's claim he can't (or won't) bring home every Australian stranded in Afghanistan and the implicit promise to abandon our allies as thousands of people try to reach safety.

The bungled vaccine rollout is also dismissed by Morrison as something unforeseeable despite experts, Labor, unions and business all warning his government in 2020 that we needed more Pfizer and more local manufacturing capacity.

The exclusion of children from the vaccine rollout targets and the suggestion that opening up at 70-80% isn't impacted by the tens of thousands of active cases in the community is also broken down.

NSW records three straight days of record cases pushing the active cases well above 10,000 while extending their lockdown until October.

Victoria records 65 new cases, many in the regions around Shepparton, with lockdown extending into regional Victoria.

The ACT records 19 cases, 10-12 of which are in the disability community.  New figures showing only one quarter of NDIS participants have had A dose of vaccine has highlighted the failure of Morrison to deliver on the promise to vaccinate disability support workers and Australian's with a disability.

Fascist recruitment rallies were held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide as up to 4,000 people marched with "violence in mind".  Many repeated foreign propaganda, used Trumpian slogans, flew foreign flags and littered the streets with Nazi paraphernalia. The violence saw six police officers injured in Melbourne with 218 neo-fascists arrested and a further 47 arrested in Sydney.

Unemployment officially went down, but like the vaccination numbers, Morrison's government has been caught out using statistical fiddles with the real unemployment number closer to 10% than 5% and underemployment sky-rocketing.

Episode 51: Morrison fails allies in Kabul, COVID explodes in NSW, wages go backwards and good news on electric highways

Van Badham and Ben Davison examine the situation in Afghanistan, Morrison's abandonment of our allies, the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban, what is happening to the Hazara people and the fears many have for women, girls and minorities.  People are desperate to get out as Taliban leaders declare national pardons but Taliban fighters are reportedly beating up fleeing civilians and the West scrambles to respond to the thousands of people in need of a visa, a flight and a new home.

Van and Ben discuss Trump's poison pill "peace" deal, Morrison's long history of inaction to save the people who helped save so many Australians and the complexity of place known as "The graveyard of empires".

COVID is out of control in NSW with over 8,000 active cases and a new single day record today.  People are angry, frustrated, scared and upset yet the failures of Glady's government to set clear, strong rules and provide the support people need to survive only seems to get worse by the day.  Attempts to make the pandemic about "individuals doing the wrong thing" fail to hold water as mouth pieces for foreign propaganda reveal in the notoriety gained from organising mass exposure events under the guise of "protest" without any serious consequences.

Unions are fighting to expand the number of Australian's who have access to vaccine leave, currently at 1.6M, to ensure everyone who can get vaccinated is supported to get vaccinated.  Union members continue to win better wage outcomes as wage price data out today shows overall wages have declined and the average worker has seen their wages take a real terms cut of 2% over the last 12 months.  The Morrison government pushing the decline with public sector workers taking the biggest hit.

There is good news on an electric vehicle highway in WA, the Kiwi bird and solar powered refrigeration trucks!

Weekend Wrap 15 August 2021

Ben Davison looks at the current COVID crisis, how Morrison and Gladys have helped each other avoid responsibility as Australians die and states are locked down by the Delta variant that was allowed to leak out of Sydney but a Premier and a PM too slow to react, too arrogant to do what was needed and too political to put our health above their polling numbers.

Morrison turned down an open ended offer from Pfizer for vaccines last year becasue, at $20 a dose, he said they were too expensive.  Today he's arranged 1M doses from Poland and refused to say how much they are costing.

Some corporations want to be able to mandate vaccines while Australian Unions make the point there aren't enough to make that work, we should be removing barriers like no paid leave and providing support like paid vaccination leave if we want to help people get vaccinated.

Afghanistan is falling to the Taliban and Australia needs to get our allies out.  Get the safe.  Get them here.  Before more innocent people are murdered as an example to not work with the west.

Unions in NSW win payments for workers who have to take time off to get tested and/or isolate because of the pandemic.  A big win in a state where the government has refused to work with working people and continues to believe "more fines" is the universal answer to every question.

Plus we give a shoutout to our friends over at On The Job!

Episode 50: Houston, Canavan, Christensen and Kelly, The company Morrison keeps. Morrison blames developing countries to avoid climate action. COVID gets worse. Good news is whiskey powered trucks!

Van Badham and Ben Davison explore the company Prime Minister Scott Morrison keeps as his pastor faces charges of concealing a crime, one of his senators spouts Bannon neo-fascism and made up numbers on the ABC and one of his members in the lower house regurgitates foreign conspiracy theories and finally gets called out on it by the parliament. Plus there's Craig Kelly, Gerard Rennick and even a bit of Barnaby!

The IPCC, and reality, says humans are slow cooking our only home but Scott Morrison wants the poorest people on earth to do something or a miracle technology before he'll "write a blank cheque" to save us.  Van and Ben explore how the same mouth pieces for foreign propagandists on COVID are also the same people threatening the government if they do anything to improve our environment.

COVID gets worse in NSW with no real end in sight as more areas enter lockdown and Melbourne extends the 6th lockdown for another week.  Van reports from Sydney and asks the question: Do you want the kind of strong decisive leadership that we've seen in the Labor states or the hopeless failure of Morrison and Gladys to continue?  "Because that's the choice people will have to make."

The good news is that whiskey waste is being used to fuel whiskey delivery trucks in closed manufacturing processes!

Weekend Wrap 8 August 2021

Ben Davison recaps a great Olympics for Australia during a difficult time and discusses some of the highlights that bought the nation together.

COVID remains out of control in Sydney with more deaths, record case numbers, growing hospitalisations and a creeping lockdown that feels piecemeal to the rest of the nation.

Brisbane comes out of lockdown as Cairns goes in and Melbourne is back in lockdown as Tasmania and WA record cases.

Wins for workers at McCains, we acknowledge aged care worker day and the passing of Richard Trumka and Lina Cabaero as workers, in union, keep rejecting pressure to accept pay cuts.

Episode 49: NSW suffers 233 new cases of COVID as man in his 20's dies, Morrison's women problem is a problem for everyone, good news about solar cars!

Van Badham, in lockdown Sydney, and Ben Davison, with a crying dachshund, dive into the mishandling of the Sydney lockdown, the spread of Delta, how Morrison's attacks on the public sector have resulted in needing to use the Army for a health crisis and what we can do to remove barriers to vaccination.

The workers at McCain are back at work following their win over the multinational corporation's attempt to lock them out, workers at Coca-Cola in WA are standing strong against attempts to cut their conditions and Van discusses how our greatest PM, John Curtin, was a unionist even while fighting World War II

The "morality of our current leadership" under the Morrison government has been called into question by Grace Tame, Australian of the year, and Van and Ben explore how scandal after scandal has gone unpunished and doing the wrong thing but avoiding responsibility is being rewarded by Morrison. 

The good news is about solar cars and new battery technology!