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

Weekend Wrap 19 September 2021 Nuclear subs blowing up jobs, diplomatic and trade relations, Morrison‘s Port Problem, Pro-Covid protestors and union wins!

Ben Davison is back with the Weekend Wrap looking at how Morrison's Nuclear sub deal is blowing up Australian jobs, threatening trade relations with China and the EU and resulting in the only European power that cares about the Indo-pacific region withdraw their ambassador from Australia and the United States (their oldest ally).

But we will now get eight instead of 12 subs.  In 2040. And "that fella", as Biden calls Morrison, has only had to part with $90 billion of our taxpayer funds to make it happen.

Morrison's more immediate problem is Christian Porter.  The embattled cabinet minister is facing daily calls to resign over the revelation that he received an anonymous million dollar donation.  Morrison's Finance Minister, Simon Birmingham, took a grilling over it on the ABC show Insiders today and refused to either support or condemn his cabinet colleague in a masterful display of how to avoid demonstrating any values while looking than his own government's climate action policies.

Pro-Covid fascist recruitment rallies were held again this weekend with over 200 arrested and 10 police officers injured.  Australia's COVID vaccination rate has hit 37% but the impacts are not just case numbers as 13 people died in NSW.  10 of which have died before hitting average life expectancy.  84% of Victoria's cases today were under 50.

Worker have had wins to round out the week with 360 AMWU members at Cadbury taking action to see those who have been "casual" for 10 years offered ongoing work, UWU member's at Dulux voted unanimously to reject a sub-standard deal and AWU members at Bluescope Steel have won $5,000,000 in back pay that will see some workers take home $45,000!  It pays to be union.    

Episode 55: Porter‘s mystery donor and Morrison‘s problem with accountability, Education under attack, COVID updates and good news about cows

Van Badham and Ben Davison examine the latest Morrison government transparency failure as Christian Porter receives a "blind" million dollars for his legal fund that even Malcolm Turnbull can't stomach but Frydenberg says is "within the rules".

Its been over 1,000 days since Morrison announced the as yet undelivered national anti-corruption organisation but he has found time to cut the national audit office budget after it uncovered sports rorts and a $30 million payment to a Liberal Party donor in exchange for a parcel of land worth $3 million.

Van and Ben look at the chequered history of three Morrison ministers and how their ability to avoid responsibility has seen them promoted into positions where they wield enormous budgets, cultural power and control over the mechanisms of government.

The rise of the far right has been made worse by COVID and by cuts to our educational institutions.  The workers in our universities and schools are fighting back to make sure people get the educational tools we need to have a functioning democracy, free of the tyranny of fascist rule.

Van also explains why the super spreader protests are happening and how they connect to standard fascist playbooks on building support for themselves, at the expense of the people.

One in three Australian's are vaccinated against COVID, despite the selective use of phrases like "eligible", "a dose" and other mumbo jumbo words so we need to get more people vaccinated as today saw more deaths, more lockdowns and more anguish. 

The good news is that cows can be toilet trained!  Maybe next they'll find a way to keep Morrison's ministers out of the trough....

Plus a special guest appearance by Van's mum who wanders in to say "Hello!"

Episode 54: Morrison‘s father‘s day jaunt, Women‘s summit ”platitudes”, more vaccinations needed before COVID under control and good news about scooters & football

Van Badham and Ben Davison examine how Scott Morrison's decision to fly to Sydney for father's day weekend, at tax payer expense across two closed borders, was compounded by the sleight of hand photo used on his social media and speaks to his continued poor judgement in the wake of his trip to Hawaii, the family pub crawl around Cornwall and his decision to deal with the politics, rather than the substance, of his party's "women problem".

The Women's Summit, Morrison's attempt to make the rolling scandals and systemic mistreatment of women in Australia under his leadership go away, has been slammed by Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins, Victorian and Queensland Ministers as well as groups advocating for women fleeing domestic violence.  Brittany Higgins wasn't an invited delegate, even though in many ways she was the catalyst for the summit, and the Australian Union movement was invited at all.  Van looks at how this summit continues the Morrison approach of dealing with the politics rather than the problem, the sense of disappointment that comes from Morrison's refusal to impliment all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report and the baffling new human rights commissioner appointment that was announced, while the summit was on, who grace Tame described as "a grave mistake."

COVID continues to ravage Australia with more deaths than at any point in the pandemic except when it got loose in commonwealth regulated aged care.  Australian Unions have joined the push to increase vaccination rates with a new campaign as the rate of full vaccinated Australians still sits just over 30%.

The good news is the trial of electric scooters in Ballarat and a zero emissions Premier League game between Tottenham and Chelsea happening this month!

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!